ODJ: stronger

May 6, 2015 

READ: Luke 20:1-18 

Everyone who stumbles over that stone will be broken to pieces, and it will crush anyone it falls on (v.18).

Five years ago, in a burst of renovating energy, my husband and I decided to install tile flooring in our kitchen. Cold to the feet on winter mornings, hard on the joints year round, but easy to clean, tile was our choice again when we moved a year ago. Enduring the heavy traffic through our house, its strength has proven unyielding—even to the point of being ruthless when anything breakable happens to fall on it.

Insufficient to save ourselves, we need Jesus’ pride-shattering redemption whether we choose to acknowledge that need or not (Isaiah 53:6; Romans 3:23). Pride has permeated our flesh ever since humanity’s first confrontation with evil and subsequent disobedience in the garden of Eden. We’re convinced that we’re right even when we’re dead wrong, and we often ignore the roots of our diseased mindset (Genesis 3:1-5; John 8:44).

In Luke 20, the problem with the religious leaders who engaged Jesus in dialogue was their belief that they already had all the answers and authority. Like those men, we can become amazed with our own abilities to reason and solve problems, and intoxicated with the false power of controlling our own destinies. Forgetting we’re like grass (1 Peter 1:24), we strive to build a life—and inadvertently, a theology—that suits our making.

—Regina Franklin

365-day-plan: Esther 5:1-14