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Marked Devotional 3

by David Joynt on March 08, 2022


ROMANS 5:8 | 8 But God proves his love for us in that while we still were sinners Christ died for us.

Why is our sense of our profound guilt so crucial? Is such a sensibility not just a depressing element that inhibits our self-realization? Awareness of our brokenness is the only secure foundation for a genuine, stable experience of divine love.

It is lovely to be loved for your brilliance, goodness, beauty, and worthiness. But such a love is always inherently unstable. What happens to it when we act in ways that are stupid, evil, ugly, and unworthy? It disappears! God’s love is there despite the reality of these elements in us. His mercy was greater than Israelite sins.

When we lose our awareness of our brokenness, we begin to feel God’s commitment to us is inevitable, natural, and entirely deserved. This sense of privilege is deadly in many senses.

Do you have anyone that loves you despite your flaws, unconditionally?

Tags: flaws

About the Author
David Joynt

Dave Joynt began his service as a pastor at Valley Presbyterian Church in Paradise Valley, Arizona in September 2014. This meant a move away from the Northeast, where he has a long history, growing up in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania and then serving congregations in Delaware and New Jersey for a total of 23 years.

Dave was nurtured in a great church in Bethlehem where his parents, Anne and Carey, served as elders. He graduated in classics from Lehigh University where his Father taught, and then from Oxford, where he met his wife Julia. Ordained in 1988, he completed a Ph.D. from Princeton Theological Seminary in 1993.

He and Julia have a son, Tristan, and a daughter, Madeleine.

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