LIVING WATER VINEYARD DEVOTION WEDNESDAY- THE RESCUE

September 30, 2026

The Heaviest Stones First

Luke 19:10

“For the Son of Man came to seek and to save the lost.”

Good morning, Living Water family!

All week we’ve been hearing stories of The Rescue.

On Monday, Lawrence heard “God loves you” through an open window when he was ready to end his life.

Yesterday, Jesus pursued Tiffany and Richie as they ran in opposite directions.

Today I want to tell you about Robin.

She had every reason to think that people who spoke about Jesus would never understand her.

Yet when her life fell apart, Jesus came looking for her.

“MAYBE TODAY”

Robin grew up in a Jewish family in New York.

Her grandparents had escaped persecution in the Soviet Union. When the government began closing synagogues, her grandfather knew it was time to leave. He could endure hardship, he said, but he could not accept being unable to worship God.

They settled in Brooklyn, where they welcomed other Jewish immigrants to their table and into their home.

After Robin’s parents divorced, her grandparents helped raise her.

Her grandmother cooked, laughed and danced. Her grandfather told stories from the Torah so vividly that Robin could picture herself crossing the Red Sea with him.

Every day he prayed and said:

“Maybe today the Messiah will come.”

Robin grew up loving her family and observing Jewish traditions.

But at college, she began living in two worlds.

She still cared about her Jewish faith.

And her dorm room was party central.

There were drugs and alcohol, but Robin made rules for herself:

Never use them alone.

Never use them when she felt sad.

Then her mother called.

“SEVEN DOLLARS”

Robin was told her grandmother had suffered a heart attack. She flew home.

When she arrived, her parents told her the truth.

Her grandmother had been murdered during a robbery.

The person who killed her took seven dollars.

Seven dollars.

The woman who had helped raise Robin was gone.

Six months later, her grandfather died too. Robin believed he had died of a broken heart.

Grief and fear changed her.

The rules she had made for herself fell away. Now she drank and used drugs alone, even when she was sad.

Then she became seriously ill.

She lost weight. Her eyes turned yellow. Her hair came out in clumps. Doctors found severe problems with her blood and organs, but she wasn’t getting better.

Friends of her family stayed close. Some believed in Jesus, and they began talking with Robin about Him.

She wanted nothing to do with it.

“READ IT FROM YOUR OWN BOOK”

Robin had experienced people treating her cruelly because she was Jewish. She knew the history of persecution her family had survived.

So when people told her that Jesus was good news, she had a hard time believing them.

She wouldn’t let them read to her from the New Testament.

Instead, they showed her passages from the Hebrew Scriptures.

Robin argued.

But when anxiety kept her awake at night, she found herself thinking about what they had read.

One friend of her mother’s—a Jewish woman who believed Jesus was the Messiah—kept visiting.

Even when Robin became angry, the woman would go home, pray and return another day.

Then she read Robin a passage about someone despised and rejected—

someone who carried the pain of others—

someone pierced for their transgressions.

Robin was furious.

“You’ve been reading me the New Testament!”

Her friend went to the cabinet where Robin’s family kept her grandparents’ Bible. She opened it and handed it to Robin.

“Read it from your own book.”

It was Isaiah 53.

“But he was pierced for our transgressions, he was crushed for our iniquities…”

Robin looked at the page.

The words were there in her family’s Bible.

She began to believe that Jesus was the Messiah her grandfather had spent his life waiting for.

“THE CHAINS FELL OFF”

The next day, Robin went to church with her friend and received prayer.

She was still visibly sick afterward.

But something had happened inside her.

“I feel like I had chains on me,” she said, “and they just fell off.”

She felt awake.

Alive.

Her friend told her, “You just met Yeshua. You just met Jesus.”

Robin went home and began reading the New Testament. She was struck by Jesus’ love and by how deeply its story was connected to the Jewish Scriptures she knew.

But meeting Jesus didn’t make every struggle disappear.

Robin was still ill.

And when she prayed, painful things surfaced.

Bitterness.

Shame.

Fear.

Anger.

Then she sensed the Lord leading her to pray for the person who had killed her grandmother.

“PRAY FOR HIM”

Robin prayed for hours.

She did not excuse what had happened. Her grandmother’s life mattered, and the wrong done to her family was real.

But as she prayed, Robin began to wonder what had happened in that person’s life.

She found herself weeping and asking God to show him healing and love.

She could not undo his actions.

But Jesus was freeing her from the hatred she carried.

Robin described it this way:

Jesus lifted the heaviest stones first.

The ones lodged deepest in her heart.

Then, one by one, He began lifting the smaller stones.

Her heart was growing lighter.

But her body was still sick.

“GO ASK FOR PRAYER”

One morning at church, Robin sensed the Lord telling her to go forward for prayer.

She didn’t want to go in front of so many people. She decided she would return that evening, when the service would be smaller.

But the prompting persisted.

So she went.

After her next blood test, her doctor thought the lab had mixed up the samples. He ordered another test.

When the second result came back, he told Robin her blood work was normal.

Robin told him she believed Jesus had healed her.

She began gaining weight. Her skin improved. Her hair thickened. Her energy returned.

Years later, Robin said further tests showed no sign of the damage another doctor expected to find.

For nearly three years she had been too sick to plan her future.

Now she had strength again.

But when Robin told her story, she spoke about more than her body.

She spoke about the chains that fell off when she met Jesus.

And the stones He lifted from her heart.

THE RESCUER FOUND HER

Living Water, look at where Jesus found Robin.

She was grieving.

Afraid.

Seriously ill.

And convinced that she wanted nothing to do with Him.

Jesus pursued her through people who stayed close, through the Scriptures she already knew, and through the prayers she finally allowed herself to receive.

Maybe you’re carrying a stone today.

A loss.

A wound.

Shame over something you did.

Anger over something someone did to you.

You don’t have to pretend it’s small.

Bring the truth of it to Jesus.

You can begin with a simple prayer:

“Jesus, this is too heavy for me. Will You help me carry it?”

Robin’s grandfather used to pray:

“Maybe today the Messiah will come.”

Robin came to believe that He had come—and that He had been seeking her.

That is why Jesus came:

To seek and to save the lost.

PRAYER

Jesus, thank You for seeking Robin when she was grieving and afraid.

Thank You for the people who stayed close to her.

Some of us are carrying heavy stones today. We bring You our grief, our anger, our shame and our fear.

Meet us there.

Where forgiveness feels impossible, help us take one step with You.

Where our hearts or bodies need healing, we ask You to come near.

Thank You for seeking us.

Thank You for saving us.

And thank You that Your work in us continues.

In Jesus’ name,

Amen.

Living Water, remember this today:

The stone may be too heavy for you.

It is not too heavy for Jesus.

Have a wonderful Wednesday.