Devotions

"Rejoice greatly, O daughter of Zion! Shout, O daughter of Jerusalem! Behold, your King is coming to you; He is just and having salvation, lowly and riding on a donkey." — Zechariah 9:9 The crowds spread their cloaks and waved their palm branches, expecting a conquering warrior on a warhorse. Instead, heaven's King rode in on a borrowed donkey — not with a sword drawn, but with arms open wide. This was no political revolution dressed in armor; it was a divine rescue mission wrapped in humility. The same hands that flung stars into the sky held no weapon, sought no palace, commanded no legion. He came not to be served, but to serve, and to give His life as a ransom for many. Every expectation the world had of power and greatness, He quietly, deliberately turned inside out. No crown, no throne, no army — just a donkey and a King who came to give His life for the world. He still turns the world upside down. Will you? *Image via Instagram: @saltandlightwords Two w...

My nine-year-old son Ezra was talking today about the Greek and Norse gods — Zeus, Ares, Loki and the rest — and how they were famous for killing people, even each other. Gods of power. Gods of war. Gods who took what they wanted and destroyed what stood in their way. Then he stopped and said something that I haven't been able to shake: Jesus was different. He chose to die for love instead of kill for it. Nine years old. Isaiah wrote that "a little child shall lead them," and I think he was onto something. Because in one quiet observation, Ezra put his finger on what makes Christ unlike every other figure in the history of religion. The gods of every empire have always looked like the empires that worshipped them — powerful, armed, triumphant in battle. Jesus looked like a man on a cross, forgiving the people who put him there. That difference is not incidental. It is the whole point. And it turns out that an enormous number of Christians — across two thousand years, from...