No Debating
I have a penchant for useless disputes. I’ve actually argued that Timothy and Titus were in fact the same person. I once got so swept away with predestination that I brought my dear wife to tears telling her that our kids may not be elect. Extremes entice me. I’m not into rappelling or white-water rafting, but as far my mind goes… Surf’s up! Being prone to the edges as I am, I need the balance that so many offer me in the Body of Christ. They reign me in time after time. The Bible itself does that too, if I let it. It’s amazing – I can spend hours reading each side of some theological slugging-match, and go away feeling so far from the Lord. Then, simply opening my Bible to read a passage totally unrelated leaves my jaw dropping at how ludicrously wondrous the Lord Jesus is. There’s no debating that.
The centrality and supremacy of the Lord Jesus Christ is so beyond dispute that I can safely spend all my days enraptured by Him, without a care for whoever might think such-and-such. It’s a freeing thing. Knowing that my personal theology is flawed in countless places, I can rest in the fact that I can’t get Jesus wrong. He’s made it too difficult to do so. “Altogether Lovely” is His uncontested title. What aspect of His life has ever been maligned? Except for the mystifying way the likes of Bertrand Russell may object to the withering of the fig-tree, the Lord Jesus remains the highest example of character the world has ever known. Religions of the world attest to his greatness. He has won the admiration of both the Believer and the Atheist – and the Agnostic. And He keeps winning mine.
Paul said, “To live is Christ.” Jesus is life. He’s a safe place to waste my time. He’s a worthwhile space to clear my calendar (and my head) for. His life began under a magnetic star that drew those thrice-gifted worshippers. All we know of his boyhood was that he baffled Rabbi’s not with answers, but with questions. As Mary searched for Him among her relatives on the road, she was simply rehearsing for the day when He would set His face like a flint toward Jerusalem once again, to be lost in the darkness of death. In both cases, He was found on the third day.
Whether He was getting the Man of the Tombs some clothes, or endearingly calling the Syro-Phoenician woman a dog to draw out her faith in Him – I can’t help being enamored with the Lord Jesus. Mary chose the better part than Martha, and her Lord promised that it would not be taken from her. Christ will defend me when I do the same. Sitting at His feet, I hear Him say the most with the fewest words – “Abide in me, and I in you.” May my reputation be that I am so heavenly-minded (because that’s where Christ is) that I am useless down here. My uselessness is no limit to Christ. “It is no longer I who lives, but Christ lives in me.” Fixated on Him, I am removed as a hindrance to what He wants accomplished here.
I will be distracted again by various winds of doctrine. I will get caught up in other vacuous endeavours. But at the back of the unrest I will find as I engage in all that has nothing to do with Christ – there I will find a longing to examine the face of Jesus with the eyes faith has provided. An open bible will be curtains thrown wide, tied-together, and climbed down, to escape from the Christ-less confine I make for myself all the time. He’s been throwing pebbles at my window as far back as I can remember. “Behold I stand at the door and knock…”
BJ
The centrality and supremacy of the Lord Jesus Christ is so beyond dispute that I can safely spend all my days enraptured by Him, without a care for whoever might think such-and-such. It’s a freeing thing. Knowing that my personal theology is flawed in countless places, I can rest in the fact that I can’t get Jesus wrong. He’s made it too difficult to do so. “Altogether Lovely” is His uncontested title. What aspect of His life has ever been maligned? Except for the mystifying way the likes of Bertrand Russell may object to the withering of the fig-tree, the Lord Jesus remains the highest example of character the world has ever known. Religions of the world attest to his greatness. He has won the admiration of both the Believer and the Atheist – and the Agnostic. And He keeps winning mine.
Paul said, “To live is Christ.” Jesus is life. He’s a safe place to waste my time. He’s a worthwhile space to clear my calendar (and my head) for. His life began under a magnetic star that drew those thrice-gifted worshippers. All we know of his boyhood was that he baffled Rabbi’s not with answers, but with questions. As Mary searched for Him among her relatives on the road, she was simply rehearsing for the day when He would set His face like a flint toward Jerusalem once again, to be lost in the darkness of death. In both cases, He was found on the third day.
Whether He was getting the Man of the Tombs some clothes, or endearingly calling the Syro-Phoenician woman a dog to draw out her faith in Him – I can’t help being enamored with the Lord Jesus. Mary chose the better part than Martha, and her Lord promised that it would not be taken from her. Christ will defend me when I do the same. Sitting at His feet, I hear Him say the most with the fewest words – “Abide in me, and I in you.” May my reputation be that I am so heavenly-minded (because that’s where Christ is) that I am useless down here. My uselessness is no limit to Christ. “It is no longer I who lives, but Christ lives in me.” Fixated on Him, I am removed as a hindrance to what He wants accomplished here.
I will be distracted again by various winds of doctrine. I will get caught up in other vacuous endeavours. But at the back of the unrest I will find as I engage in all that has nothing to do with Christ – there I will find a longing to examine the face of Jesus with the eyes faith has provided. An open bible will be curtains thrown wide, tied-together, and climbed down, to escape from the Christ-less confine I make for myself all the time. He’s been throwing pebbles at my window as far back as I can remember. “Behold I stand at the door and knock…”
BJ
posted by BJ at 2:36 PM
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