Desiring God Blog : Posts by Jon Bloom

“Simon, son of John, do you love me?”

Peter was grieved. Sitting on the beach after breakfast, Jesus had just asked him for the third time if he loved him. Peter had already wholeheartedly answered yes twice. What else was he supposed to say?

With these questions, the Lord was putting his finger on a very tender wound in Peter’s heart. Peter’s failure on the night of Jesus’ trial had been simply horrible. In the hour of his Lord’s greatest anguish, Peter had denied even knowing him. This sin shook Peter to the core of his being.

Jesus had told him that he would do it.¹ But in the Upper Room, over the Passover meal, with his fellow disciples around him, Peter did not believe it. He could still hear himself proclaim, “I will lay down my life for you.”²

He had had no idea how weak he really was. He had imagined himself boldly standing before the Sanhedrin side …

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There he sat, the scum of society on the footstep of heaven on earth, begging the condescending mercy of pious passersby going in and out of the temple. Enough mercy today and he could eat.

This man was blind. He had been born that way. And it was his own fault. As a fetus this man had sinned in the womb against the Almighty. Either that or his parents had sinned and brought a curse upon him. Whichever it was, he was suffering a just punishment.

Those who had been righteous fetuses walked by and sometimes dropped a coin in his hand. This would merit them even more divine favor.

You see, in the law and prophets God had not explained exactly why one sinful person suffers more than another sinful person. So theologians had deduced that a person’s suffering must result directly from a specific offense(s) against God.

Interestingly, Job’s three friends¹ had reac…

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When visiting my mother recently I was leafing through a well-known magazine and came across an article about a well-known actress who is a professing Christian. The article described her vibrant faith and the role of prayer in her life. I was encouraged by her cultivation of constant prayerfulness. I want to grow in that too.

But the comment that stuck with me was, “I know not to beg [God] for patience, because then he gives me situations in which I have to grow more patient; I learned that lesson!”

God bless her honesty. Over the years many earnest Christians have said similar things to me. Ask God to make you more godly and what happens? You get more difficulty, more struggle, and more pain. Who wants that?

The answer is: we should! Not the pain for its own sake, of course. But if the discipline of pain produces the peaceful fruit of righteousness (Hebrew…

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Will Jesus provide for you? Are you struggling to believe it, because when you do the math it doesn’t add up? You’re in good company. Philip and Andrew had witnessed astounding miracles by Jesus, but when it came to feeding 5,000 people¹ the math added up to impossible.

Imagine a conversation between Philip and Andrew as they are gathering up the leftovers.

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Philip set his basket load of bread fragments down on the grass. He straightened his tired back and scanned the huge crowd of happy, sated people. It was hard to absorb what had just happened.

Andrew dropped his basket beside Philip’s, blew a sigh, and leaned on Philip’s shoulder. “Well done, Philip! You fed them, just like Jesus instructed. But I’d say you overestimated the bread.” With a dazed laugh Philip answered, “No, I overestimated the cost!² I thought the bread would bankrupt us. I…

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According to folk history, the…

…English word sincere comes from two Latin words: sine (without) and cera (wax). In the ancient world, dishonest merchants would use wax to hide defects, such as cracks, in their pottery so that they could sell their merchandise at a higher price. More reputable merchants would hang a sign over their pottery — sine cera (without wax) — to inform customers that their merchandise was genuine.¹

I’m no etymological expert. But I have witnessed plenty of misleading marketing by mendacious merchants in my time. So the explanation seems plausible to me.  I mean, is there not a lot of “wax” hiding a lot of defects all around us?

But in all sincerity, I know this mainly because I know me. I am a clay jar (2 Corinthians 4:7). I am a clay jar that is quite flawed. And my sin nature is a mendacious marketing merchant. It does not want you …

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“But when the fullness of time had come, God sent forth his Son” (Galatians 4:4).

Jesus, you came in "the fullness of time."

But how many of your children living during the ripening years wondered at your tarrying? A thousand years stretched between Abraham and David. Then another thousand passed between David’s golden age and the moment when time was full.

How many were the wars, rumors of wars, slaughters, disasters, diseases, and famines? How many brilliant leaders, scholars, and innovators blazed across their regional skies and disappeared? How many parents wept and prayed over their broken children as time was being fulfilled? How many longing eyes closed in death loving your appearing?

And how many grew cynical, saying, “Where is the promise of his coming? For ever since the fathers fell asleep, all things are continuing as they were from the beginn…

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Mary was “blessed among women” (Luke 1:42). She received the singular holy gift of being the mother of our Lord (Luke 1:43). God the Son dwelled inside of her body in human form. Then he lived in her home and was under her care until adulthood. This has tempted some to worship her.

In fact, one woman publicly exalted Mary by crying out to Jesus, “Blessed is the womb that bore you, and the breasts at which you nursed” (Luke 11:27)! But Jesus corrected her by replying, “Blessed rather are those who hear the word of God and keep it” (Luke 11:27-28)!

Do you see what Jesus is doing? In this correction Jesus is protecting Mary’s true blessedness and protecting us from idolatry.

Gabriel told Mary that she had “found favor with God” (Luke 1:30). Certainly bearing and raising the Christ Child was an incredible favor. But it was not the greatest favor God bestowed on M…

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(Un)Planned Detours

“The heart of man plans his way, but the Lord establishes his steps" (Proverbs 16:9). As Jesus’ earthly father discovered, this is just another way of saying that when your plans are detoured and redirected, you find out who’s really charting the course.

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Nazareth. It felt good to Joseph to be back home. The same old market and the same old merchants. The same old neighbors with the same old complaints. The same old synagogue and the same old rabbi. 

Oddly, though, the normalcy felt a bit strange after the unexpected adventures of the past couple of years. What an odyssey this simple Galilean carpenter had been on.

It had all started with Mary’s world-shaking pregnancy announcement that took an angel to help him believe. He had hardly stopped reeling from that news when he was hit with the census decree from Rome.

Joseph rec…

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A Stable of Desperation

The first Christmas night was a holy night. But it was not a silent night. All was not calm. After walking a hundred miles, Joseph arrived in an overcrowded Bethlehem, with a wife in advanced labor. And “there was no place for them in the inn” (Luke 2:7).

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“We are completely full. We can’t take another person.”

“Please, my wife is about to give birth! We’ll take anything with a little privacy.”

Compassion and exasperation mixed in the fatigued innkeeper’s eyes. His tired hand rubbed over his head. “Look, I would give you our own quarters, but we’ve already given them to others. People are in every nook and cranny. There is no room, especially to have a baby.”

Back in Nazareth, Joseph had felt so confident. He knew nothing about assisting in births. That was women’s domain. But God had sent his angel to Mary and to him. God …

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A Painful Decision

When his mother Mary had been betrothed to Joseph, before they came together she was found to be with child from the Holy Spirit. And her husband Joseph, being a just man and unwilling to put her to shame, resolved to divorce her quietly. (Matthew 1:18-19)

Joseph felt a twinge of anxiety. He sensed something unusual in Mary’s request that he come.

When he arrived she was standing under the tree near her father’s house where, as a betrothed couple, they were given some supervised privacy. Mary wasn’t herself. She was staring at the ground. She seemed burdened.

“Mary, is something wrong?”

She looked up at him intensely. “Joseph… I’m pregnant.”

A blast of shock and disbelief hit him, blowing away all his coherent thoughts for a moment. His legs quavered. He grabbed at the tree to steady himself. It felt solid, rooted.

He stared at her…

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