Disfigured for another - All The Good Seed Daily Devotionals for 2025

He is despised and rejected by men, a man of sorrows. And we hid, as it were, our faces
from him, and we did not esteem him.

God has made this Jesus, whom you crucified, both Lord and Christ.
Isaiah 53: 3; Acts 2: 36.

Disfigured for another
A fire broke out in a house in the village. The neighbours came running up. Suddenly there was a desperate cry. It came from a small boy trapped by the fire. The mother, who had been shopping, arrived panic-stricken. She rushed across, but an arm held her back. A man went through the flames instead and managed to reach the floor above. He stripped off his jacket and wrapped the lad in it before descending the stairs through the intense heat. The child was saved; the man was badly burnt and suffered severely for a long time. When he was cured, his face was unrecognisable.

The rescued child grew up. The villagers gradually forgot. The disfigured man terrified the children. They fled on seeing him. Sometimes they laughed about him, and the one rescued joined in. But his parents remembered, and one day, when the boy could understand, they told him the reason for that brave, kind-hearted man's disfigurement.

The child burst into tears. How could he mock someone who had risked his life to save him?

Feeling ashamed and remorseful, he ran off, found his hero and hugged him.

This account reminds us of the sufferings of Jesus, to whom we owe eternal life. Is He not worthy of our gratitude, love and obedience? His wish is that we should remember Him. Are we willing to do so?

Today‘s reading: Numbers 11: 10 - 23 · Matthew 8: 1 - 13