Author: John Tillman

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Take Up Your Mat

Scripture Focus: John 5.14
Jesus found him at the temple and said to him, “See, you are well again. Stop sinning or something worse may happen to you.”

From John: In this repost from 2019, we see Jesus find a man of weak faith who is fearful, hesitant, and paralyzed by more than his physical condition. No matter what has paralyzed you in this past year, no matter how scared you are, no matter how weak your faith, Jesus is reaching out to you. Take up your mat and walk.

Reflection: Take Up Your Mat
By John Tillman

The paralytic at the pool is one of the more unusual miracles of Jesus. In most miracles of healing, someone comes to Jesus with a request.

The Centurion sent to Jesus on behalf of his servant and the leaders of the Jewish community supported the Centurion’s request due to his kindness to them.

Bartimaeus called out to Jesus over the noise of the crowd, “Son of David, have mercy on me,” and asked directly, “Lord I want to see.”

Jairus, a synagogue leader, humbled himself to come to Jesus openly, begging for his daughter to be healed.

Along the way to Jairus’s daughter, the woman with the issue of blood braved the crushing crowd, to touch Jesus.

But in the case of the paralytic, Jesus seems to initiate everything. Jesus sees the man. He discovers how long he has been there. He singles him out. He questions him. He heals him.

Another common element of other miracles is a moment in which Jesus comments on the person’s faith. That is absent in this account as well. The paralyzed man’s faith is questionable—perhaps so weak that only Jesus could see it.

Sometimes, a miracle is the beginning of a journey of faith instead of the end. Perhaps the reason Jesus told the man to pick up his mat and walk, was so that he would not be able to come back to the same spot in which he had been lying for years.

In the case of the paralyzed man, Jesus wasn’t done with him after being healed. Jesus once more sought him out. Jesus found him in the Temple—a place the man was forbidden to go before being healed. There Jesus called him to repentance and warned him that there were worse things than being paralyzed by a pool for 38 years. Jesus had more for this man than simply taking up his mat and walking. He has more for us too.

Jesus sought us out when we were paralyzed and deformed by sin. Though our faith might have been so small only he could detect it, he healed us, granting us access to God at the Temple. But he isn’t done with us after this miracle. He still seeks us out. To warn us, to call us to continued repentance, to transform our lives.

Jesus isn’t done with us after the miracle of our salvation. When we take up our mat and walk, we are just beginning to follow him in faith.

Pick up your mat and walk. Then take up your cross and follow him.

Divine Hours Prayer:
Save me, O God, for the waters have risen up to my neck. — Psalm 69.1

Today’s Readings
Genesis 5 (Listen 3:18) 
John 5 (Listen 5:42)

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Become More by Becoming Less

Scripture Focus: John 3.27-30
27 To this John replied, “A person can receive only what is given them from heaven. 28 You yourselves can testify that I said, ‘I am not the Messiah but am sent ahead of him.’ 29 The bride belongs to the bridegroom. The friend who attends the bridegroom waits and listens for him, and is full of joy when he hears the bridegroom’s voice. That joy is mine, and it is now complete. 30 He must become greater; I must become less.” 

Reflection: Become More by Becoming Less
By John Tillman

The messages we are surrounded with at the turn of the year are consistent and insistent: become more.

Become more fit.
Become more wealthy.
Become more appreciated.
Become more sexually fulfilled.
Become more powerful.
Become more free.
Become more you.

Our culture is radically expansionist. It is not just our economy that must achieve growth at all costs. As individuals, we are pressured to justify our existence. “You aren’t enough the way you are now. Become more.”

Goals can be pursued sinfully or in purity. Paul tells us, “physical training has some value.” (1 Timothy 4.8) Even things that aren’t “physical fitness” such as becoming a better leader, or partner, or working more efficiently have value. But in at least one area, Paul was told by the Spirit, “my grace is sufficient for you.” (2 Corinthians 12.9)

It can be difficult to discern whether we are succumbing to societal pressure to “improve” or following a spiritual imperative to “press on” (Philippians 3.12-14) or “spur one another on.” (Hebrews 10.24) Being “normal” or “satisfied” is a sin in a culture of maximalism and extremism.

No one would call John the Baptizer “normal.” John was an insider who became an outsider. His birth was announced by an angel in the Temple but he left the Temple system and traditional ministry to became a vagrant, desert-dweller, offering harsh words in a harsh environment.

John rejected the gains others thought valuable and became less. He rejected the norms of earthly kingdoms to become more according to God’s kingdom.

Even John, and especially his followers, felt pressure to “become more!” As the crowds swelled around Jesus, they slimmed around John. John was comfortable becoming less. Are we?

Becoming less doesn’t mean physical or spiritual laziness or apathy. It means evaluating things according to a different, kingdom oriented, metric. Ask yourself, “Why do I want this? Where is this pressure coming from? How am I expected to achieve this?”

Through prayer seek guidance on areas in your life where settling for less actually means gaining more. Also, there may be areas where physical training and improvement can have double value by helping to improve your spiritual walk. When you step away from culture’s pressures, you’ll find blessings in the steps you take in discipleship. When you step back in one area, step forward in another.

A few suggestions to become more by becoming less:

  • Stack good things together: Listen to the Bible and pray while walking, exercising, or working. Memorize scripture while brushing your teeth or showering.
  • Less distraction, more connection: Give up some Internet or entertainment time to text or email a friend and pray for them.
  • Less conflict, more grace: Intentionally avoid controversies and post more practical biblical encouragement.
  • Less complaining, more learning: Complain less about what you read in the news and share weekly or daily about what you are learning in the Bible/your church/reading in devotionals, etc.
  • Less impatience, more presence: Reduce whatever it is you use to “escape” or “fill time” and be present, through conversation, prayer, meditation, observation, or even…silence.

Divine Hours Prayer: A Reading
Of John the Baptizer, it is written: When the Jews sent to him priests and Levites from Jerusalem to ask him, “Who are you?”, he declared, he did not deny, but he declared, “I am not the Christ…I am, as Isaiah prophesied, “A voice of one that cries out in the desert: Prepare a way for the Lord; make his paths straight.” Now those who had been sent were Pharisees and they put this question to him, “Why are you baptizing if you are not the Christ, or Elijah, and not the Prophet?” John answered them, “I baptize with water, but standing among you—unknown to you—is the one who is coming after me: and I am not fit to undo the strap of his sandal.” This happened at Bethany, on the far side of the Jordan, where John was baptizing. — John 1.19-20; 23-28

Today’s Readings
Genesis 3 (Listen 4:14) 
John 3 (Listen 4:41)

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From Your Nothing…Something Beautiful

Scripture Focus: John 2.6-11
6 Nearby stood six stone water jars, the kind used by the Jews for ceremonial washing, each holding from twenty to thirty gallons. 

7 Jesus said to the servants, “Fill the jars with water”; so they filled them to the brim. 

8 Then he told them, “Now draw some out and take it to the master of the banquet.” 

They did so, 9 and the master of the banquet tasted the water that had been turned into wine. He did not realize where it had come from, though the servants who had drawn the water knew. Then he called the bridegroom aside 10 and said, “Everyone brings out the choice wine first and then the cheaper wine after the guests have had too much to drink; but you have saved the best till now.” 

11 What Jesus did here in Cana of Galilee was the first of the signs through which he revealed his glory; and his disciples believed in him. 

Genesis 1.1-2
1 In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth. 2 Now the earth was formless and empty, darkness was over the surface of the deep, and the Spirit of God was hovering over the waters. 

Reflection: From Your Nothing…Something Beautiful
By John Tillman

I recently came across a video by Dr. Darrell Johnson. In it, Dr. Johnson explains why turning the water into wine is, in his opinion, the most miraculous thing done by Jesus that is surpassed only by his resurrection.

What about feeding the 5,000? What about raising Lazarus? Well, as Dr. Johnson explains, when he fed the 5,000 he only multiplied what was there and when he raised the dead he only reanimated what was there. In the miracle of the water into wine, he demonstrated that he can create something from nothing.

I have, in the past, wondered why John, who only chose seven miraculous signs to testify to Jesus’ divinity, would spend one of his seven choices on the wine at the wedding. I thought perhaps John wanted to start small. But Dr. Johnson has made me reconsider that. 

John opened his gospel with a poetic description of Jesus, the Word, as a participant in the creation of the world—that “through him, all things were made.” (John 1.1-3) In Genesis, the “nothing” from which God created the world was “formless and empty” water. The Spirit of God hovered over this empty and formless deep sea and John testifies that Jesus was there.

The biblical authors, including John, didn’t have a concept of “nothing” that was formed, as ours has been, by space travel. To them, the vacuum of space was the open ocean, and “nothing” meant the formless, useless, shapeless, chaos of the deep waters.

Perhaps John remembered and related this story specifically because it places Jesus once again hovering over deep pools of “nothing” and turning them into something.

How has your past year gone? Are you, like the wedding host, staring down scarcity? Are you hovering over deep waters of disappointment? When you look for meaning or achievements, do you see only formless, useless, shapeless, chaos, like the shifting waves of the deep ocean?

Give your scarcity, your vacuum, your chaotic, shapeless, formless fears and failures of the past to Jesus. Sense him hovering over them with you. From your nothing, Jesus can make something beautiful.

The water became the finest wine that brought joy to the heart. What will your “nothing” become? What it will be can only be known by following him. Join us in following him. And bring someone with you.

Divine Hours Prayer:
Proclaim with me the greatness of the Lord; let us exalt his name together. — Psalm 34.3

Today’s Readings
Genesis 2 (Listen 3:42) 
John 2 (Listen 3:02)

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Walls Unmade, Walls Restored

Scripture Focus: Nehemiah 12.43
43 And on that day they offered great sacrifices, rejoicing because God had given them great joy. The women and children also rejoiced. The sound of rejoicing in Jerusalem could be heard far away. 

Joshua 8.6-10
6 So Joshua son of Nun called the priests and said to them, “Take up the ark of the covenant of the Lord and have seven priests carry trumpets in front of it.” 7 And he ordered the army, “Advance! March around the city, with an armed guard going ahead of the ark of the Lord.”

8 When Joshua had spoken to the people, the seven priests carrying the seven trumpets before the Lord went forward, blowing their trumpets, and the ark of the Lord’s covenant followed them. 9 The armed guard marched ahead of the priests who blew the trumpets, and the rear guard followed the ark. All this time the trumpets were sounding. 10 But Joshua had commanded the army, “Do not give a war cry, do not raise your voices, do not say a word until the day I tell you to shout. Then shout!”

Reflection: Walls Unmade, Walls Restored
By John Tillman

When the people of Israel came into the promised land from their sojourn in Egypt and forty years of desert wandering, their first act in the land was the destruction of a wall.

Except for the blowing of trumpets, they walked in grim silence around the wall of Jericho. The inhabitants of Jericho were terrified. On the seventh day of walking, the walls of Jericho were unmade. They collapsed along with any hope the city had for survival.

In Nehemiah, the Israelites are returning to the promised land. They have sojourned under the rule of foreign kings. They have wandered, geographically and spiritually. They have been leaderless and without a wall to protect them. After the physical labor of remaking the walls of Jerusalem, Nehemiah assigns the spiritual labor of dedicating all they had done to the Lord.

Nehemiah’s dedication ceremony has echoes of the march around Jericho. The people march, led by priests with trumpets. This time, however, they march on the wall not around it and they are not a silent, threatening army. They are a praise-filled glorious choir.

This was a solemn moment for the people because they, better than anyone, realized that the same God who had unmade the walls of Jericho had unmade the walls of Jerusalem. Without the blessing of God, any bulwark is mere boasting. Without God’s sustaining influence, any affluence is insufficient. Without his protection, any practical self-defense measure will fail.

In joy, they circled the city with praise. In reverence, they marched upon the wall God restored. Through prayer, they raised a greater line of defence than any stone wall.

As you end this year, where do you find yourself in this story? Perhaps you feel like you have been wandering in the wilderness? Perhaps circling a wall that needs to come down? Perhaps treading the top of a wall, praying it doesn’t collapse? Have some things you had faith in been unmade? Have you struggled at reconstructing your faith? 

In their ceremony, Nehemiah circled the wall one way and Ezra the other. Find your Ezra. Partner with them in accountability and responsibility. Spend some time circling yourself, your home, your relationships, your work with worship and prayer. Recommit yourself to the future and to relying not on your own cleverness or strength but on God. Rejoice in what God restores and let your rejoicing be heard.

Divine Hours Prayer: The Greeting
Lord, you have been our refuge from one generation to another.
Before the mountains were brought forth, or the land and the earth were born, from age to age you are God. — Psalm 90.1-2

Today’s Readings
Nehemiah 12 (Listen 6:30) 
Revelation 21 (Listen 4:34)

Today’s Readings
Nehemiah 13 (Listen 5:57) Revelation 22 (Listen 3:59)
Genesis 1 (Listen 4:55) John 1 (Listen 6:18)

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Moving Into the City

Scripture Focus: Nehemiah 11.1-2
1 Now the leaders of the people settled in Jerusalem. The rest of the people cast lots to bring one out of every ten of them to live in Jerusalem, the holy city, while the remaining nine were to stay in their own towns. 2 The people commended all who volunteered to live in Jerusalem.

From John: The urban/rural divide is often highlighted in treacle-sweet holiday romances where a big-city big shot gets stuck in a quaint small town and falls for the simple life and, of course, an attractive romantic partner. This repost from 2020 highlights the fact that Christians may find a mission of love that goes beyond romance by bringing the love of Jesus to the heart of cities both large and small.

Reflection: Moving Into the City
By John Tillman

In our urban-slanted view of culture, it is hard for us to imagine why the population of Jerusalem needed to be propped up by a lottery, choosing one-in-ten men to move into the city. “Who wouldn’t want to live in the city?”, we might think to ourselves.

But when we drill down, we find that in this situation, the city was literally being rebuilt from the ground up and there were armed forces threatening attack. Jerusalem wasn’t a glittering capital, even with its restored Temple and rebuilt wall. Being chosen to move there was more like being drafted into military service than getting to move to a midtown condo.

Cities of the world today need God’s people in them, just like Jerusalem did. Cities simultaneously hold some of the greatest potential for our planet and the greatest evils. 

The urban population, 34% in 1960, has continued to grow over the past 60 years. Today 55% of the world’s population lives in urban areas. By 2050, it may be 68%.

The growth isn’t happening primarily in Western mega-cities. Urban population growth is concentrated in less developed regions of the world where for the first time a majority of people are living in urban areas. 

But this is not a situation in which people are trading horrible conditions and deprivation in the country for blissful, glittering, city-of-tomorrow dwellings that futurists expected humanity to be living in a fifth of the way through the 21st century. In fact, 40% of global urban population growth is happening in slums which exacerbates health risks and introduces new hazards.

Cities also produce 80% of the world’s GDP but this statistic is misleading. All the financial productivity of the cities is literally fed by the rural areas surrounding them. Also, very little of the financial benefits earned by cities ever manages to make its way to helping the workers who live in the slums or the rural residents who support the city’s elite.

As we wait for the day we will live in the New Jerusalem, let us not abandon the “Jerusalems” in our own nations.

May we, the church, pray earnestly for cities and ask the Holy Spirit to prompt us toward helping the most helpless, and confronting the most powerful.
May we make our light shine through good deeds, showing God’s mercy and his grace to us, and turning slums and suburbs into cities on a hill.

*Statistics from World Health Organization.

Divine Hours Prayer: The Refrain for the Morning Lessons
I will exalt you, O God my King, and bless your Name for ever and ever. — Psalm 145.1

Today’s Readings
Nehemiah 11 (Listen 5:05) 
Revelation 20 (Listen 2:49)

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