Monday, March 1, 2021
Miracle in Gethsemane
“Listen! The Lord’s arm is not too weak to save you, nor is his ear too deaf to hear you call. It’s your sins that have cut you off from God. Because of your sins, he has turned away and will not listen anymore” (Isaiah 59:1-2 NLT).
The last miracle that Christ performed before He went to the cross wasn’t raising Lazarus from the dead or healing someone who had leprosy. No, the last miracle He performed was returning an ear to the head of the high priest’s servant—an ear that His disciple, Simon Peter, had cut off with a sword.
When the temple guard and the Roman soldiers arrived in the Garden of Gethsemane to arrest Jesus, Simon Peter was so frustrated that he pulled out his sword and took a wild swing. And off came Malchus’s ear.
Peter probably was aiming for the servant’s head, honestly. But he was a fisherman, not a swordsman.
Now if I were Jesus, I would have said, “Buddy, you deserved what you got.” But instead, Jesus picked up the ear and returned it to Malchus’s head. It was kind of an unnoticed miracle and maybe even an unappreciated miracle. But this last miracle of Jesus covered up the blunder of a disciple.
God is good at cleaning up our messes—and we have our messes, don’t we?
If you want to cut off your connection with God, then leave your sin unconfessed. I’m not speaking of cutting off your relationship with God, but you can cut off your connection with Him. And the way to re-establish that connection is to ask the Lord to forgive you.
So when we’ve sinned, we need to say, “All right, Lord, I blew it here. I messed up. I’m sorry, and I don’t know how to fix it. But I’m asking You, Lord, to intervene in my life and turn this around somehow for Your glory.” Then, just watch what the Lord will do.
God can even use a mistake you’ve made to bring honor to His name. He can turn your mess into a message.
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