Wednesday, July 11, 2012
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On the Sunday before Easter, my pastor was talking about the donkey Jesus rode into Jerusalem on Palm Sunday. And my mind wandered (that's never the pastor's fault) to a horse that I met one day in Texas.
I was recording my youth broadcast with a live teenage audience on a Texas cattle ranch, and I asked if they could arrange a horse for city boy Ron to ride. Yeah, well, two adjectives defined my equine request - "old, harmless." Yeah, give me a horse that's old and harmless. So, here I am dressed in a cowboy hat and chaps (by the way, all those photos have been burned), and I mounted the steed that they found for me.
I should have asked his name sooner. See, this town had a monster tornado some years ago. You want to guess my horse's name? Yeah, I'm already on it when they said, "Tornado." Yeah. There was no turning back!
I'm Ron Hutchcraft and I want to have A Word With You today about "Super Donkey."
OK, back to the Palm Sunday donkey. When two of Jesus' disciples went to fetch the animal for Jesus' entry to Jerusalem, they might well have named him Tornado. Because Jesus said the donkey He sent them for was one "no one has ever ridden" (Luke 19:30). We're talking here a long-eared version of a buckin' bronco!
But I think that might be the overlooked miracle of Palm Sunday. With Jesus on board, that wild donkey just isn't wild. Even when they're passing through those surging crowds of "loud voices," the Bible says, praising Jesus, that unbroken donkey doesn't bolt, doesn't freak out. Again, Jesus is on board.
Which gives me another reason to join those voices who celebrated Jesus on the first day of the week that changed the world. He has power to tame what has never been tamed, including the animal inside me and inside you.
We don't have to accept as un-tamable that temper that scars the people we love, or that lustful passion that makes us feel so defeated and ashamed. This Jesus, who one week after Palm Sunday blew death away, has power to conquer in us what has been unconquerable for us. The Bible radiates hope of winning with this promise in our word for today from the Word of God in Romans 6:14 and 18: "Sin shall not be your master...you have been set free from sin."
The taming miracle of Jesus begins when you relinquish the reins to Him. Because, as the Bible says, "our great God and Savior, Jesus Christ...gave Himself for us to redeem us from all wickedness" (Titus 2:13-14). When He had bled out His life for us on that cross, He declared, "It is finished!" And that blood-bought victory included breaking the power of the animal inside us.
Oh yeah, my pastor prompted another thought during the Palm Sunday sermon. The disciples were given the curious assignment of just finding this donkey, untying him and bringing him to Jesus without asking the owner. Now, I don't know about you, but I'd be thinking about how I would look in prison stripes. But Jesus had told them, "If anyone asks you, 'Why are you untying it?' tell him, 'The Lord needs it'" (Luke 19:31). That's all the owner needed to hear. Little did he know that his nondescript beast of burden would be immortalized for carrying the King of kings to His date with destiny.
I think Jesus is still asking us to release something we have so He can use it. A talent, an ability, some money or valuables we've been hanging onto, maybe a ministry that we've hijacked from Him, a position of influence we have, our career, our retirement plans, or a child that we will not release to the call that God's given them. The finger of God may be reaching down from heaven and pointing to something or someone that we're holding tightly. And He's saying, "The Lord needs it."
You know, it may be your time to make Him more than the Savior of the world. It's time to make Him your Savior. If you want to know more about how you can take that step and begin a relationship with Him, and have the animal inside of you finally tamed by the One who walked out of His grave and has the power to do it, I hope you'll check out our website - YoursForLife.net.
If we'll let it go, whatever we've been hanging onto, He will do with it what we could never imagine. And He'll make whatever you release to Him into a miracle...like the Super Donkey.