Daily Devotional
The Crown of Misery: Rescuing His Beloved

April 5, 2020

Ponder This

Some years ago in New York City, there was a mother who was hanging out her clothes. A neighbor came screaming, “Your house is on fire!” The mother dropped her clothes and ran into the raging inferno to the crib where her little girl was. She wrapped her baby in a blanket and laid her upon the grass as the house was consumed. That mother’s face took the heat of those flames and was horribly scarred. Her hands were burned and gnarled. But the little baby was not touched at all by that fire. The little girl grew up to be a beautiful girl and when she was 18 her high school class held senior day on the Hudson River. This girl, so lovely she could have worn the crown of a beauty queen, was the center of attention. At a certain moment, this girl’s mother passed by, and one of the high school girls asked, “Who is that hideous woman?” And her own daughter said, “I don’t know who she is.”

Practice This

Once the mother revealed to her daughter the account of how she had become disfigured, the mother-daughter story concluded with reconciliation. Will your story have the same ending? The crown of thorns was placed on Jesus’ temple, one of the most sensitive parts of the body. Then they battered the head of the Lord Jesus Christ until His face was so brutalized you could not tell whether it was the face of a man or an animal? Look now upon His face. Let your heart be pricked by His crown of thorns. Recognize that He allowed Himself to be disfigured so you could be made eternally beautiful and wear the crown of the redeemed. God has revealed Himself to you through Jesus Christ. Will you be reconciled to Him?

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