Jesus saw something useful in the hot-tempered John.

Jesus looked beyond the surface, deep within John’s soul. He focused not on what the disciple was, but on what he could become when refined and enabled by God’s grace.

Christ loves taking hopeless material and making it an object of His grace. He changed John into one of the most loving, caring disciples. One of Jesus’ inner circle, he was with Jesus on the Mount of Transfiguration, in Gethsemane, and at the cross. After Mary Magdalene said that Jesus’ tomb was empty, John raced to the grave with Peter and believed.

Christ transformed John from an impatient firebrand, ready to explode at each slight, to a gentle, loving man who wrote, “Beloved, if God loved us in this way, we also ought to love one another” (1 John 4:11). Jesus’ love flowed from His heart to John. And John believed that the essence of all Christianity was love.

John’s life tells you that if you spend time with Jesus, you become like Him. The moment you accept what Jesus offers, you become as He sees you.

When Jesus looks at you, He looks beyond the surface. He sees the potential deep within your life. Today is the time you can become what God already knows you are.