More Than a Miracle
Come right on in, friend, and plant yourself in a chair before that speckled guinea hen out front decides she owns the deed to this ol’ front porch. She's been eyein’ that doorway all morning with the kind of confident authority that ought to be real embarrassing but plainly isn't. Don't worry about her. She'll settle. We've got some front porch truth today that matters a whole lot more than anything that guinea hen has got goin’ on.
Jesus never treated any two people exactly the same way because He wasn't reading faces. He was readin’ their hearts. He was like a seasoned tracker that can read a trail through solid rock, always seein’ what nobody else in the room could find. When He saw genuine hunger, He fed it. When He saw genuine blindness, He healed it. But when people came draggin’ wrong motives dressed up in Sunday clothes, He saw straight through them like noon sun through a jar of spring water.
John 2:23–25 says, ‘Many folks in Jerusalem believed in Jesus after watching His miracles.” But then comes the line that'll make you set your biscuit right down: "Jesus did not commit Himself to them, because He knew all men...for He knew what was in man." These people were chasin’ the light of the lightning bug without caring a thing about where that light came from. They wanted a wonder, not a Savior.
Hebrews 11:6 doesn't leave a single crack to slide through as it says, "He is a rewarder of those who diligently seek Him." Not the occasionally interested. Not those who treat faith like a barn cat that only shows up when it suits them. And Jeremiah 29:12–13 holds the promise that can carry your full weight: "If you look for me wholeheartedly, you will find me." Wholehearted. Matthew 5:8 says it clean and plain: "Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God." Pure in motive. Straight in intention. That is a true seeker.
Father, look through me the way a good farmer that checks every corner of a fence line before he trusts it with the whole herd. Pull out anything in me that's bent the wrong direction. I don't want only Your blessings. I want Your face. Make me wholehearted all the way to the very bottom. In Jesus' name, amen.
Friend, here’s what sits at the still center of this whole story and won't let go. Jesus didn't withhold Himself from those Jerusalem crowds out of coldness. He withheld Himself because He loved them too much to hand Himself over to a heart that wasn't truly ready to receive Him. A jar with a crack in the bottom can't hold what's being poured into it no matter how fine the pour, and a heart tangled up with mixed motives can't contain what God is trying to fill it with. The magnificent news sitting’ right here on this porch with us today is that cracked jars can be mended, tangled motives can be surrendered, and the door to wholehearted seeking swings wide open the very second you mean it. You don't have to arrive impressive or polished or put together. You just have to arrive real.
Now, go and carry yourself into the rest of this fine day, friend, and tuck this truth somewhere close where you won't lose it before supper. God ain’t hiding behind a mountain and daring you to find Him. He is standin’ in plain sight, watchin’ for the one that's comin’ with their whole heart pointed in His direction. Be that one today. He'll be watchin’ for you.
With joy,
Gwen
