23 Wednesday—July 19•An Amazing Gift! Jesus took the Twelve aside and told them, “We are going up to Jerusalem, and everything that is written by the prophets about the Son of Man will be fulfilled. He will be delivered over to the Gentiles. They will mock him, insult him and spit on him; they will flog him and kill him. On the third day he will rise again.” (Luke 18:31–33) Jesus predicted His own brutal death and victorious resurrection. Apologist Josh McDowell writes from a statistical perspective, noting the possibility of just eight prophecies being fulfilled in the same person would be around 1×1017. To describe the magnitude of that number, let’s suppose you cover Texas with silver dollars to a height of two feet. Then you blindfold someone and send him into that pile with instructions to find a specific silver dollar. McDowell tells us the probability of one person fulfilling just eight prophecies amounts to the possibility of that blindfolded person finding that coin. And Jesus didn’t just fulfill eight prophecies, but somewhere around 300. Jesus is the suffering Servant (see Isaiah 53) who gave His life so we could inherit eternal life. Whether we are reading the Old or New Testament, it all points to Him. If you are in Christ, you have eternal life. No matter what else happens, you can be assured you’ll spend eternity with God. What an amazing gift! MIMBS 2 How could you use the information in today’s devotional to share Jesus with someone who doesn’t already know Him? Daily Reading: 1 Chronicles 28:1–29:30, Romans 5:6–21, Psalm 15:1–5, Proverbs 19:18–19 Thursday—July 20•Jesus Wants Us to Understand But they did not understand what this meant. It was hidden from them, so that they did not grasp it, and they were afraid to ask him about it. (Luke 9:44) The gospels describe several times when Jesus explained something to His disciples, but they just couldn’t “get it.” Sometimes the Bible even says the meaning was hidden from them. I see several reasons for this dilemma. First, prophecies describing Jesus are sometimes cryptic. Many are not obvious, except in hindsight. Second, Jesus often explained things through parables, which were somewhat difficult to interpret. Third, Jesus didn’t come in the expected way, as a conqueror, but as a servant. And finally, despite the entirety of Scripture being about Him, in reality, the record of His own words is relatively small. The red-letter portions in our Bibles, attributed to Christ Himself, amount to only about 34,500 words. You would only need about five hours to read aloud all the words in Scripture attributed to Jesus. Yet, within those relatively few words, there is tremendous consistency. Jesus’ disciples were sometimes afraid to ask Him to further explain what He meant. Yet Jesus clearly wants His followers to understand, and Scripture shows Him to be infinitely patient and willing to help us grasp God’s plan. MIMBS 2 How have you found Jesus to be “infinitely patient and willing to help us grasp God’s plan?” Ask another man his thoughts. Daily Reading: 2 Chronicles 1:1–3:17, Romans 6:1–23, Psalm 16:1–11, Proverbs 19:20–21:9
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