DAILY DEVOTIONAL – May 13, 2020
“Thorny Beauty“
Prayer: Lord Jesus, as that crown of thorns was driven into Your precious head and You were lifted high on the cross, You reigned victorious over sin and death. Thank You Lord for Your love that ran red so that we would receive forgiveness and salvation. Amen.
Scripture: Colossians 3:12-15
12 Put on then, as God’s chosen ones, holy and beloved, compassionate hearts, kindness, humility, meekness, and patience, 13 bearing with one another and, if one has a complaint against another, forgiving each other; as the Lord has forgiven you, so you also must forgive. 14 And above all these put on love, which binds everything together in perfect harmony. 15 And let the peace of Christ rule in your hearts, to which indeed you were called in one body. And be thankful.
Devotional – “Thorny Beauty”
A rose is one of the most beautiful flowers. Their fulness, layers of thick pedals and vibrant colors are no doubt what makes the rose so uniquely beautiful. Roses come in many colors, shapes, sizes and they also have a wonderful fragrance. As the saying goes, however, “every rose has its thorns.” If you were given a bouquet of roses and accidentally pricked your hand on a thorn while trimming them, would you throw away the roses? Of course not. Neither should we throw away others because of their thorns.
Although the thorns of a rose are no doubt sharp and threaten injury, the thorns are what make the rose such a unique flower and that add to the overall beauty of the rose. So it is with each other. It is something we all share. We are all fearfully, wonderfully and beautifully made by our God who knit us together in the womb. We are all also sinners, lined with thorns. While we often try to hide our thorns and want people to focus more on our blossoms, our Lord Jesus Christ wore our sins and our thorns as a crown for all to see. Though He was sinless, He bore our thorns and was pierced through for our transgressions against God.
By God’s grace through faith in Christ, God now receives us into His Kingdom like a beautiful bouquet of roses; thorns and all. Since we have been forgiven and so loved by God, He calls us to love others like a rose as well; thorns and all. This is what our passage from Colossians is exhorting us to do when it says, “12 Put on then, as God’s chosen ones, holy and beloved, compassionate hearts, kindness, humility, meekness, and patience, 13 bearing with one another and, if one has a complaint against another, forgiving each other; as the Lord has forgiven you, so you also must forgive.”
The French novelist John-Baptiste Alphonse Karr is perhaps most famous for saying, “The more things change, the more they continue to be the same thing.” John-Baptiste also said something worth remembering about roses that can be equally applied to life and love. He said, “We can complain because rose bushes have thorns, or rejoice because thorns have roses.”
Like the rose, our brothers and sisters in Christ are beautiful. But just like every rose, they all have their thorns, and on occasion we all get stuck by each other. That’s when Scripture reminds us of our own thorns, our own sin that stuck Christ on the cross as the nails were driven into His hands and feet and the spear pierced His heart. “As the Lord has forgiven you, so you also must forgive.”
I am not sure who first said it, but I have heard it said many times that the purpose of the thorns is to draw attention to the rose. In much the same way Jesus calls us to draw attention to His great love by loving others with the love He has given us. In John 13 Jesus says, “A new commandment I give to you, that you love one another: just as I have loved you, you also are to love one another. 35 By this all people will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another.”
Christ has set us free through His death and resurrection, and we most fully experience that freedom when we set others free and forgive.
Thanks for joining me today for another time of devotion in God’s Word. Remember, that God has forgiven yesterday, is with you today and has already taken care of tomorrow. Amen.
