If I'm aware of anything today, it's how much I still need Jesus to come and change my heart.
After all these years, I am still at square one. Learning to love others more than I love myself is my greatest challenge. Putting the needs of others above my own is still impossible for me.
In my heart of hearts I am still a petty, selfish, judgemental, impatient mess. I long for Jesus to come and live in me today just as desperately as I did when I first asked Him into my heart at the age of 9.
Without Him I can do nothing. He is my life. He is my only hope. Nothing good lives in me apart from Jesus. He is my Messiah. I am utterly and hopelessly lost without Jesus.
This is why I find joy in this season. Because Jesus humbled Himself and left the splendor of Heaven to become a baby born to poor parents. He became nothing and made himself a servant. Why? Because, for some reason, he loves me. He loves all mankind enough to let go of everything to win us back and make a way for us to be with Him forever.
Jesus is Emmanuel, which means "God with us", and I am so grateful today that God is with me, and for me, even when I am so totally hopeless and lost.
Today our family read Isaiah 53 together. It's a prophecy from roughly 600 years or more before Christ, and yet it speaks so specifically about Jesus as our suffering Messiah. It tells us that he will be pierced for us, and bruised in our place, and that by his stripes we are healed.
One thing I noticed today that I have not noticed before is how Isaiah's prophecy is written in the past tense. As if all of these things had already happened when Isaiah penned them over 600 years before they actually occured. Perhaps that's why John tells us in Revelation that Christ is "the Lamb who was slain from the foundation of the world" (Revelation 13:8)
In God's heart, in His eternal plan, the sacrificial death of Christ was a done deal before the creation of the universe. It was certain. It was sure. Even as a future event, it was appropriate to speak of it as if it had already taken place.
This is how we should approach all of the promises of God. All of them are as good as done, because He has said so. He does not lie. He can not fail. He will not let us down. Ever.
Somehow, God will make you and I - the followers of Christ - into the exact image of His Son. This miracle will happen. He will accomplish it. It is as good as done, even though at this moment we are anything but the Christ-like people He is making us into.
"Dear friends, now we are children of God, and what we will be has not yet been made known. But we know that when Christ appears, we shall be like him, for we shall see him as he is. All who have this hope in him purify themselves, just as he is pure."
(1 John 3:2-3)
2 comments:
I can relate to this. After all these years I keep finding the same struggles creep up. Just when I feel like I've graduated to something higher I instantly fall again and am reminded of how much I completely and utterly suck apart from Christ. His life, not mine, has to be the one living. His love, grace, patience and all that He is still amazes me. Paul said in Galatians and Romans that our old self HAS died with Him and we HAVE already been raised to new life. We need His grace and complete control to walk in this truth rather than believing the lie that our life is our own and it's responsibility to please Him by our own power because our own strength is worthless. Jesus simply amazes me. Thanks Keith
Keith,
How true. I never thought of Isaiah 53 speaking in past tense, but this truth belies a deep spiritual truth. It is true that everything I will ever be, I already am. Everything that will ever be done in my life is already done. When Jesus died on the cross He stated "It is finished". That meant that all the work He was going to do was done, in eternity. Our responsibility, as Christians, is to learn to walk in faith, so that we can appropriate in the here and now what He has already done in eternity. It is a fascinating truth.
Mark
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