Friday, January 28, 2011

35. He Has Forgiven Even The Stuff I Forgot

Luke 23:34


Today I was driving past one of those contraptions that sits on the side of the road and blinks your current speed at you in big yellow numbers right under a sign with the speed limit. As usual, it was blinking because I was cruising along at a speed that was a tad over the posted limit. Then it hit me... I was in someone else’s car! Yikes! Then I thought to myself, “Have I driven past any speed cameras this morning since I’ve picked up this car that’s not mine?” What if this precious family from whom I borrowed this car wound up paying for a ticket I earned?! What if my wrong cost them and I never even knew it? That made me think of our Lord. When He was dying on the cross, all of the sin of the world was placed on His account, as if He had committed all our wrongs, even though He never did even one wrong thing. I love Jesus because He paid for everything, even the (so-called) little stuff we don’t even realize we do everyday. There are wrongs I’ll never even know I did because He has forgotten and will never tell me. He felt it all, it cost Him dearly and yet He gladly paid because He loves us that much.

Thursday, January 20, 2011

34. He Was Dissed

John 1:11


The big, fat theological term for what happened in the first Christmas is the ‘Incarnation.’ It means that at a certain point in history, the Eternal and Almighty God put on skin and became a man in the person of Jesus. I bet when angels think about the Incarnation, their heads are spinning over the fact that normal life continued once Jesus arrived on this earth. They are probably mystified over the fact that people casually talked to Jesus in the streets, or even walked right past Him in the marketplace without taking any notice. They may have thought, “Don’t they realize who He is!?!” When angels first heard about the Incarnation, they probably assumed it was the end of the world... that every single person throughout the world would stop, bow and worship their Maker and the Lover of their souls. But that didn’t happen. Jesus came into our world quietly, without notice. He grew up quietly in a small town and no one even realized that He was God in the flesh. Why didn’t He make the world bow down by the force of His glorious and limitless might? Well, because Jesus doesn’t just want subjects, He wants to be loved. I love Jesus because when He came, He gave people the right to ignore Him; because love isn’t something you can insist upon, no matter how strong you are.

Sunday, January 16, 2011

33. He Will Never Judge Me

John 5:24


Now don’t get me wrong. I deserve to be judged. So do you. Everyone does. I know this is tough to read, but Romans 3 says that every person alive has fallen short. God made us to know Him and love Him and not only have we broken His rules, but we’ve broken His holy heart as well. When you read the deplorable narrative of this messed up world, we’re not just victims, we’re the villains in this story. We’re all rebels and all lost, but that’s why Jesus came. We deserved judgment. We ought to have experienced the emotional trauma of the convulsion of the universe at the hands of our unthinkable rebellion, and yet, God hans’t treated us that way. To anyone who wants it, God offers forgiveness instead of judgment. But how? If we deserve judgment, how does He forgive? That’s where Jesus comes in, and that’s why He came. I love Jesus because He took my place. He died to pay the penalty for my wrong and has forgiven me. Because of that, He’ll never, ever judge me. That’s why He said, “Whoever hears my word and believes Him who sent me has eternal life and will not be judged but has crossed over from death to life.”

Sunday, January 9, 2011

32. He Was A Carpenter

Mark 6:3


Did you ever wonder what happened to Jesus after Christmas, that is, the first Christmas? The Bible tells us a whole lot about the birth of Jesus, then gives one little snapshot of Him at age 12, but outside of that, we aren’t told really anything about His life from birth until He was around 30 years old. Almost everything we know about Jesus took place in the last three years of His life on earth, which means we're basically in on one tenth of His life story. In fact, one of the only things we know about all those years before His public ministry is that Jesus was trained to be and in fact became a carpenter. Jesus spent most of His life quietly minding His own business in the carpenter's shop. The question is, of all the things for God on earth to do, why carpentry? I'm not totally sure, but maybe it has to do with the fact that carpenters take fallen, dead and dry wood into their workshop and use care, skill and time to transform a lifeless thing into a treasure. Jesus has always been about this work. I love Jesus because when He found me, I was fallen, dead and dry, but He's planing, cutting, sanding and building me with His skill into something totally new.

Thursday, January 6, 2011

31. He Wanted To

Mark 1:41


Every single person God ever made has rebelled against Him; and ever since this rebellion began with the very first man and woman, one of the main results has been a fearful shame. Interestingly, one of the ways the Lord teaches us about the effects of sin in the Bible is through a sickness called Leprosy, which is like a living parable of what rebellion against God does to the human heart. A person with Leprosy has basically lost the ability to feel, so they don't know when they're doing something that is harmful to them. They are completely unaware of being burned, cut or having a spreading infection. As a result, the disaster on the inside starts to affect the outside and as they physically fall apart, they become isolated, alone and ashamed. Lepers were outcasts; people no one wanted to know or be around. One of the first things Mark includes in his narrative is the story of a man with Leprosy who comes to Jesus and basically says, "I know You have the power to heal me... I don't know if you would want to or not." Mark tells us that as Jesus heard this, He became "filled with compassion" and not only healed him, but reached out, touched him and then healed him. I love Jesus because not only did He have the power to take away my sin, He wanted to; and in so doing, took away my shame.

Monday, January 3, 2011

30. He's Not Afraid Of A Good Fight

Matthew 4:1


Right before Jesus' public ministry began, He had this strange encounter with Satan where He was tempted to sort of short-circuit the will of God for His life and take the easy way out, which would have ruined any chance for all of us to be saved. Before Satan showed up, Jesus didn't eat food for a month and a half. He was alone in the wilderness for six weeks with no comfort, no friends and no nourishment. This is the moment the Devil showed up. Now, my whole life, I've felt sorry for Jesus in this instance because it seems like Satan is trying to kick Jesus while He's down, but that's not the whole picture. Your see, not only did Jesus win the fight, but the very first verse of the story tells us that Jesus was led out into the wilderness for this fight by the Holy Spirit and not by Satan. In other words, this battle was God's idea, not Satan's. The Lord provoked this altercation. He was picking this fight. He wasn't afraid to face Satan, He wanted to! I love Jesus because He's not afraid of anything and in fact, if there is a malevolent enemy out there who wants to take me out, Jesus wants to get in his face and take him out first.