Righteous
Things fit sometimes. Two previously unassociated things can come together and are a perfect match. Married people will tell you all about it. My wife and I share a common dislike for birthday cake. She got a ring from her parents with my birthstone in it, and not hers (she didn’t like her pink one) before she even knew me. We discovered that we both played with the exact same sunflower mirror rattle in our cribs. I could go on. Maybe I will.
There have been a lot of things that my wife and I did not talk about ahead of time. We kept finding out that we agreed on pretty well everything already. Kids, finances, church… short conversations. Don’t get me wrong – there have been adjustments on both sides. Our first trip to the grocery store involved me putting things in the cart and my wife taking them back out again. But we fit. I’m a happy man. I can honestly say that my wife is perfect.
I’ve wondered about the answer to a question that poses itself in my head quite often, and it’s this: “Why bother with Jesus at all.” It’s the world’s question to me. They want to know (I think, anyway) why He plays the central role in my life. My answer these days has simply been, “He’s right.” He fits. He is a match for the bottomless pit of a hole in my heart. If someone asked me why I think Jesus is coming back someday, I would say, “He’s never been wrong about anything else, so why would he be wrong about that?” He foretold that the temple would be destroyed to the extent that not one stone would be left on top of another. It happened in 70 AD – exactly the way he said. He’s never been wrong, so that makes Him right.
He’s right when he says that “he who commits sin is a slave to sin.” He’s right when he defends the woman caught in adultery. He’s right when he calls the Pharisees white-washed tombstones. He’s right when he casts a legion of demons out of a man and then gets him some clothes. He fits. There is no one else that is as right.
Marriage is a picture of Christ and the Church. When I see my wife and I matching so well, it reminds me of just how right Christ is for His Bride. He never married, you know. He’s preparing his Bride now, and there will be the Marriage Supper of the Lamb in heaven. I haven’t just been invited, I’m going to be walking up the aisle. My wife will be there too – not married to me in the same sense as we are down here (I’ll leave that for another time) but past needs there with Christ forever.
For now, I am not a match for Him. I carry around a corpse called my sinful nature that still trips me up a lot. But Christ has committed himself to me. I love the poetry of how Paul puts it in his letter to the Philippians: “that I may lay hold of that for which Christ Jesus has also laid hold of me.” I will match him someday. That’s the purpose of His cross. The job here, is to let that work go deep, and let him show me what he’s already up to in getting me ready. He knows best. He’s right. A’aight?
B-to-the-J
There have been a lot of things that my wife and I did not talk about ahead of time. We kept finding out that we agreed on pretty well everything already. Kids, finances, church… short conversations. Don’t get me wrong – there have been adjustments on both sides. Our first trip to the grocery store involved me putting things in the cart and my wife taking them back out again. But we fit. I’m a happy man. I can honestly say that my wife is perfect.
I’ve wondered about the answer to a question that poses itself in my head quite often, and it’s this: “Why bother with Jesus at all.” It’s the world’s question to me. They want to know (I think, anyway) why He plays the central role in my life. My answer these days has simply been, “He’s right.” He fits. He is a match for the bottomless pit of a hole in my heart. If someone asked me why I think Jesus is coming back someday, I would say, “He’s never been wrong about anything else, so why would he be wrong about that?” He foretold that the temple would be destroyed to the extent that not one stone would be left on top of another. It happened in 70 AD – exactly the way he said. He’s never been wrong, so that makes Him right.
He’s right when he says that “he who commits sin is a slave to sin.” He’s right when he defends the woman caught in adultery. He’s right when he calls the Pharisees white-washed tombstones. He’s right when he casts a legion of demons out of a man and then gets him some clothes. He fits. There is no one else that is as right.
Marriage is a picture of Christ and the Church. When I see my wife and I matching so well, it reminds me of just how right Christ is for His Bride. He never married, you know. He’s preparing his Bride now, and there will be the Marriage Supper of the Lamb in heaven. I haven’t just been invited, I’m going to be walking up the aisle. My wife will be there too – not married to me in the same sense as we are down here (I’ll leave that for another time) but past needs there with Christ forever.
For now, I am not a match for Him. I carry around a corpse called my sinful nature that still trips me up a lot. But Christ has committed himself to me. I love the poetry of how Paul puts it in his letter to the Philippians: “that I may lay hold of that for which Christ Jesus has also laid hold of me.” I will match him someday. That’s the purpose of His cross. The job here, is to let that work go deep, and let him show me what he’s already up to in getting me ready. He knows best. He’s right. A’aight?
B-to-the-J
posted by BJ at 4:43 p.m.
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