Never Give Up

 DEVOTION

THE GOSPEL ACCORDING TO LUKE

NEVER GIVE UP

Luke 7:18-23

18 John's disciples told him about all these things. Calling two of them, 19 he sent them to the Lord to ask, "Are you the one who was to come, or should we expect someone else?" 20 When the men came to Jesus, they said, "John the Baptist sent us to you to ask, 'Are you the one who was to come, or should we expect someone else?'" 21 At that very time Jesus cured many who had diseases, sicknesses and evil spirits, and gave sight to many who were blind. 22 So he replied to the messengers, "Go back and report to John what you have seen and heard: The blind receive sight, the lame walk, those who have leprosy are cured, the deaf hear, the dead are raised, and the good news is preached to the poor. 23 Blessed is the man who does not fall away on account of me." 

NIV

Of course, the hidden message, and yet not hidden, here is about John the Baptist being in prison, a time he was going through an extremely tough time after being on a mountain top for a long time. He had been called from birth, set apart by God to do something extraordinary, Baptize the Son of God. John was also a rising star among the Jews as many were coming to him, hearing his preaching of repentance, and being baptized in the Jordan. A spiritual experience, we were privileged to take part in by baptizing some people in that same Jordon River. What a spiritual high moment in the life of John the Baptist after he baptizes Jesus, knowing he is the Lamb of God, in fact, John declared that when he saw Jesus passing by one day. We don’t know for sure if that was before or after he baptized Jesus and when John saw the Spirit descend on Jesus like a dove and heard the voice of God from heaven declaring that Jesus was his Son in whom He is well pleased. Can we say we have been in the presence of Jesus and the Spirit and the Father’s voice all at once? What an extremely high moment for John, and now he sits in jail, maybe more like a dungeon, cold, dark, and damp, perhaps in the presence of rats. It is no wonder why he is questioning if Jesus is the one? Faith requires constant believing that Jesus is the One, the Holy One of God, the Savior of the world, our Savior, our Redeemer, Our Lord, no matter the circumstances of this life. We have had some high times and some low times, but the one thing that we must always know is that Jesus died for our sins, and set us free from the burden of death, giving us eternal life. Jesus is always our Lord and Savior, even when we are going through a hard time, perhaps even the roughest time of our lives. We are always blessed by God because of Jesus, and we will never fall away, no matter what. We have to consider that he proved to the messengers from John that the blind received sight, the lame walk, those with leprosy, or in our case, skin cancer, are cured, the deaf hear, and the dead are raised, and the good news is preached to the poor. All that is also proof in our lives, for we were once blind but now we see, we were once crippled, but now we walk with God, our skin was once dead, but it is now it is made alive, once we could not hear the truth, but now we do, and yes, we were once dead in our sin, but Jesus raised us up and gave us life. we have been transformed by Jesus, the Word of God who became flesh and dwelled among us. As Winston Churchill once said at a graduation ceremony, “Never give up, never, give up”. Since we have graduated from death to life, we can never give up, not ever, for Jesus has transformed us, and once transformed we can not be untransformed, never going back, never giving up.