I Am Because You Are October 4, 2025 Devotional

JOHN 10:17-18 | ¹⁷ For this reason the Father loves me, because I lay down my life in order to take it up again. ¹⁸ No one takes it from me, but I lay it down of my own accord. I have power to lay it down, and I have power to take it up again. I have received this command from my Father.”

God’s most remarkable freedom is the freedom to be with and for us. It may sound strange, but He is not limited by His divinity. We generally think of divinity as the opposite of limitation. Our knowledge is limited, God’s is not, since He is omniscient. Our geographic location is specific and concrete, He transcends our locality and is omnipresent. We are limited by time, going from birth to death, but He is eternal. But in Jesus, God chooses locality, limitation, and even death. He is not stuck in a set of immutable divine characteristics. He chooses to enter history in a personal way, to teach and heal and suffer and then to lay down His life on behalf of human beings. His limitation and loss is the key to our escape from limitation. When He takes up His life again we are given the capacity to join our human lives to His divine life. What a shepherd!

God is free like no other because He can make others free from sin and death. Do you agree?

Gracious God,

What a risk You took! What a journey—from heaven to earth, from the stable to the cross, from grave to heaven’s throne. Thank You.

Amen.