Cutting Corners

0:00September 23rd, cutting corners. We all enjoy a good life hack, don't we? Learning how to be more efficient with our daily lives? In work and school, we want to work smarter, not harder. But what if we treated our relationships like this? What if we gave the least amount needed for a friendship? Well, this is often what we end up doing with God. Living with our lives completely surrendered to him is a...well, an overwhelming task. So we try to break it into smaller, bite-sized requirements. Until we find ourselves, checking boxes, hoping God thinks we're fully invested. Today we'll hear from a man who lived a compartmentalized life such as this. He's here to share with us his true story. On this unshackled, daily devotional. I was raised in a good family that went to church, so I dug my own holes I fell

1:02into later in life. My vices began in college, smoking, drinking, brawling. My third year, I dropped out, got a job and carried on with my wild party life. I married a girl I'd gotten pregnant, but I neglected her and the baby, so my marriage failed. Financially strapped and depressed, a drank even harder, and added drugs to my problems. There was another side to me, though. I was a volunteer fireman and medic, active in community service. I volunteered at charities and thought my good works would offset the bad stuff and get me into heaven. One day I helped a friend who had bacterial spinal men and gytus and three days later I was dying at the same infection. My heart stopped in the ER. I needed to tracheotomy and I lay in a coma for 14 days. When I came out of the coma, I was legally blind. I spent 12 months in physical therapy but came home to spend Christmas with my mom, depressed and suicidal, stuck in a wheelchair. I was too afraid of hell to end my life and cried out to God pleading with him to forgive me and to save me. God's love flowed over me like nothing I'd

2:03ever felt and I knew Jesus was real. I shared my new faith with a nurse's aide who began reading the Bible to me and then we went to church together. Today we're married with two children. I'm John Hesseck and I'm still a blind man in a wheelchair but I share the love of Jesus through a prison ministry, a Bible study and letters. God declares in Hosea chapter 6 verse 6, for I desired mercy and not sacrifice and the knowledge of God more than burnt offerings. Friend, there are no cutting corners with God. The gospel has always been the hardest road to follow because it is not a series of expectations and rituals. God requires our heart and nothing less. But as John discovered, when we give God our heart each and every day, he provides the contentment and joy we have always been seeking. So examine yourself. Are you trying to live an

3:12efficient Christianity? And will you consider this truth today? Unshackled, the longest running audio drama in history airs on over 3,000 radio stations worldwide, real people, real life stories and the hope that changes everything. This award-winning program grips the heart with compelling and relevant stories of transformed lives. Without Jesus Christ, we are all shackled by sin, by our wrong choices, disobedience and selfish motives. But God is at work and the power of Christ sets us free of our bondage. Listen to a new devotional every day and don't forget to tell your friends about unshackled daily devotional.