Beliefnet is pleased to present the first 7 days of devotionals from Max Lucado’s “3:16: The Numbers of Hope” (Thomas Nelson, 2007).
Introduction
The story of Jesus reads a bit like a scrapbook. Headline clippings. Newspaper photos. Jesus’s favorite stories and lesson outlines. Here’s Luke’s snapshot of Jesus riding in Peter’s boat. Matthew took this group photo when the seventy followers met for a party after the first mission trip. (Jesus is the one seated cross-legged in the center of the first row, smiling like his troop captured the Boy Scout Jamboree trophy.) John pasted a wedding napkin from Cana in the book as well as a funeral program from Bethany. He was the contributor who lamented, “There are so many other things Jesus did. If they were all written down, each of them, one by one, I can’t imagine a world big enough to hold such a library of books” (John 21:25 MSG).
Flipping through the scrapbook leaves the reader with this impression: Jesus was, at once, common and not; alternately normal and heroic. One minute blending in with the domino players in the park, the next commanding the hell out of madmen, disease out of the dying, and death out of the dead. He conversed with kids and fishermen yet spoke with equal ease to waves, wind gusts, and demons. Who was this man?
No question matters more. I’ve collected a few scrapbook entries to help us find an answer. Having dedicated “3:16: The Numbers of Hope” to the deep drilling of one of Jesus’s statements, I want us to conclude with a flyby read of his entire life. Consider reading one entry a day, from the Bethlehem manger to the vacated tomb. Keep in mind that the final entries are yet to come, including the snapshot of you and your Savior at heaven’s gateway.
–Max Lucado
From 3:16: The Numbers of Hope, by Max Lucado (2007). Used with permission of Thomas Nelson Publishers, Inc.