Jesus Never Disappoints Us

“Life is full of disappointments.” As cynical and cliché as this sounds, it is an understatement regarding the life we live in the flesh. After all, we were originally created to live with God and walk with Him in the cool of the day in a perfect and blissful garden.

We were meant to live in perfect peace—peace with God, peace within ourselves, peace with each other. And we were made to live forever; death is an unwelcome guest, a thief who breaks in and steals.

That is why our earthly pleasures and pursuits disappoint us: they do not live up to what we were made for. Times of leisure are hemmed in behind and before with nagging cares and concerns. Plans for the future often fail, and sometimes even our most hopeful expectations fail to bear fruit. Even our most prized material possessions are never numerous enough or of sufficiently high quality to please us:

“Sheol and Abaddon are never satisfied, and never satisfied are the eyes of man.”

But Jesus, in rescuing us from our sin, gives us a new life and a new set of desires that will not be denied. He causes us to find contentment in our temporal estate, and to look forward to an inheritance that is imperishable, undefiled, and unfading, kept in heaven for us. He proves Himself faithful and reliable in a way that no other earthy commodity can boast:

“His mercies never come to an end; they are new every morning; great is your faithfulness.”

He creates a spiritual appetite for what is truly important in life:

“Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they shall be satisfied.”

And He promises to be both the source and fulfillment of our every desire:

“All my springs are in you.”

Thank you, Jesus, for filling my poor soul with desires that You alone can satisfy! When all else fails, You will never disappoint me:

“Hope deferred makes the heart sick, but a desire fulfilled is a tree of life.”

“For he satisfies the longing soul, and the hungry soul he fills with good things.”

Jesus Loves Fun

“Fun” is not a word that is commonly used in religious contexts, perhaps because we associate it with ephemeral and meaningless pleasures devoid of eternal benefit. But we forget that Jesus created fun, and while its wrong use is to be avoided, its right use is to be embraced because it is a foretaste of heaven and a reflection of His character. On many of the the various appointed feast days the Old Testament, God’s people were commanded to celebrate:

“And there you shall eat before the Lord your God, and you shall rejoice, you and your households, in all that you undertake, in which the Lord your God has blessed you.”

Agricultural abundance is a common Scriptural symbol for the rich delights that are afforded to those who love God:

“Honor the Lord with your wealth and with the firstfruits of all your produce; then your barns will be filled with plenty, and your vats will be bursting with wine.”

And while he condemned godless frivolity, Jesus Himself had fun. He used hilarious exaggerations: straining out a gnat and swallowing a camel, wooden beams sticking out of our eyes, camels passing through the eye of a needle. He ate and drank with tax collectors and sinners, and what a party that must have been!

“He brought me to the banqueting house, and his banner over me was love.”

Fun without sin is heaven indeed. Lord, be the center of all my delights and enjoyments in this world—the life of party now and forever!

“In your presence there is fullness of joy; at your right hand are pleasures forevermore.”

Jesus Hates Evil

Just as it is right to love goodness and truth, so it is also right to hate that which is truly evil. We are to love our enemies and pray for those who persecute us, because by God’s grace there is both evil and good in them, and they may still be saved from the wrath to come. But toward the evil one and his angels it is written:

“I hate them with complete hatred; I count them my enemies.”

Jesus, the sinless Son of God, had every right to treat us the same way:

“I hate the assembly of evildoers, and I will not sit with the wicked.”

And in His love and mercy He dined with tax collectors and sinners like us! But He also pronounced woe and judgement upon the Pharisees and all those whose righteousness whitewashed their wickedness. He saw the extent of their hypocrisy and emptiness of worship:

“I hate, I despise your feasts, and I take no delight in your solemn assemblies.”

He detested the way they devoured widows’ houses and prevented others from being saved:

“I, the Lord, love justice; I hate robbery and wrong.”

And while He submitted to their abuse and torture, He nevertheless despised the cross, scorning its shame. So we too are to love mercy and walk humbly with our God, but never to be at peace with iniquity or tolerate sin.  On the contrary,

“The fear of the Lord is hatred of evil.”

Let us then love what Jesus loves, and despise what He despises with all our hearts, that we may be like Him and see Him as He is.

“O you who love the Lord, hate evil!”

“Hate evil, and love good, and establish justice in the gate; it may be that the Lord, the God of hosts, will be gracious to the remnant of Joseph.”

Jesus Gives Us New Bodies

Our bodies are wonderful and amazing creations that bespeak the glory and goodness of God.

“You formed my inward parts; you knitted me together in my mother’s womb. I praise you, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made.”

And yet, because of the curse of sin, our natural bodies are prone to weakness, temptation, and death:

“The spirit is willing but the body is weak.”

“You are dust, and to dust you shall return.”

Is this not vanity of vanities?

“Do you work wonders for the dead? Do the departed rise up to praise you?”

What good can come of death? None apart from Jesus.

“If in Christ we have hope in this life only, we are of all people most to be pitied.”

But Jesus conquered and redeemed death by transforming it into the gateway to eternal life. When seed is sown, it must die before it can become what it was always meant to be. Furthermore,

“Flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God, nor does the perishable inherit the imperishable.”

But when believers die, they are remade. No longer do they bear the image of the man of dust; no longer are their bodies corruptible, weak, or perishable. They are given a spiritual body, a glorious body that is imperishable, incorruptible, indefatigable, and incapable of sin.

“It is sown a natural body; it is raised a spiritual body.”

And just as Christ can never die, so will we never die.

“He will transform our lowly body to be like his glorious body, by the power that enables him even to subject all things to himself.”

Lord, help me to bear with the infirmities and weaknesses of this poor seed in which I live now, and haste the day when I will be forever remade in the true likeness of the man from heaven!

Jesus Calls Us to Witness Boldly

A witness is one who has seen something and is willing testify to it. There are myriads who have never seen Christ, and there are still others who have seen Him, yet (like Peter) are not willing to acknowledge Him openly.

But those who do acknowledge Him are rightly called witnesses, because in doing so they testify to what they have seen and heard. No one has ever seen God, for

“Man shall not see me and live.”

And yet Emmanuel Himself walked among us, full of grace and truth, and whoever has seen Him has seen the Father also. No one has ever seen or can see God; and yet, when we behold Jesus by faith, we see God as He is.

A city on a hill cannot be hidden; how then can we hide the light of our testimony under a basket? When told not not preach or teach in Jesus’ name, the apostles responded,

“Whether it is right in the sight of God to listen to you rather than to God, you must judge, for we cannot but speak of what we have seen and heard.”

Indeed, Jesus Himself said,

“I have appeared to you for this purpose, to appoint you as a servant and witness to the things in which you have seen me and to those in which I will appear to you.”

Jesus desires that we declare Him boldly before all people:

“We have seen and testify that the Father has sent his Son to be the Savior of the world.”

And when all else conspires against us, even when our testimony is deemed foolishness and we are persecuted, that calling still holds true:

“You will be my witnesses in Jerusalem and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the end of the earth.”

Lord, give me grace to declare you boldly, and if persecution be my lot, to rejoice that I am counted worthy of suffering reproach on behalf of the name!

Jesus Helps Us Rejoice In Our Work

All of us are called to some form of work while we live in this world. Work itself is a blessing, not a curse; it was part of God’s original, created order that he deemed “very good.”

However, because Adam failed in his divinely mandated task to “keep” (i.e protect) the garden, the ground itself was cursed with futility, and that same curse extends to our work today. We toil and labor only to find that thorns and thistles have grown up, and only by the sweat of our brow do we eat bread and provide for ourselves. We look for much and it comes to little.

“He who earns wages does so to put them into a bag with holes.”

And yet, it is a gracious and good thing in the sight of God that we apply ourselves diligently to the work He has given us:

“Whatever you do, work heartily, as for the Lord and not for men, knowing that from the Lord you will receive the inheritance as your reward.”

By nature this is not a trivial matter, but one of life and death:

“If anyone is not willing to work, let him not eat.”

But Jesus turns the created order on its head by giving us the bread of life, feeding us without money and without price! We who believe are fed by heavenly manna; we enjoy fields that we did not sow and vineyards that we did not plant; and we are promised an eternal inheritance that we could never afford apart from grace.

Because of these great blessings, we are motivated to be all the more industrious for our heavenly Master. In Jesus we have life, and out of that life we draw the strength we need to glorify Him in our work, no matter how trivial or exhausting!

“Everyone should eat and drink and take pleasure in all his toil—this is God’s gift to man.”

“There is nothing better than that a man should rejoice in his work, for that is his lot.”

Lord, help me to glorify You by my labors here on earth, whatever they might be!

Jesus Heals The Heart of Stone

There is no better metaphor for the cold, unfeeling nature of sin than that of a stone. Stones do not feel; they do not care; they do not worship; and they are utterly incapable of love and affection. Is it not the same with us in our natural fallen state? God says of us,

“They are not willing to listen to me because all the house of Israel have a hard forehead and a stubborn heart.”

This condition is called the “heart of stone,” and it is a dreadful and deadly affliction. Like Pharoah we naturally harden our hearts against God, restisting Him at every step, until we can neither hear or obey Him. We are like the Leviathan, of who it is said,

“His heart is hard as a stone, hard as the lower millstone.”

Our hearts just as recalcitrant as Nabal’s, who perished from this spiritual affliction:

“His heart died within him, and he became as a stone.”

Apart from God’s holy intervention, there is no cure for this disease:

“They are darkened in their understanding, alienated from the life of God because of the ignorance that is in them, due to their hardness of heart.”

Jesus Himself was angered and grieved by the stubbornness that he found among the children of mankind:

“He looked around at them with anger, grieved at their hardness of heart.”

It would be a fitting end for us to be stoned like Achan,  or swallowed up in an earthquake like Korah. But praise be to God that Jesus does not draw near to cast stones, but to heal us! He has fulfilled Ezekiel’s majestic prophecy:

“I will give you a new heart, and a new spirit I will put within you. And I will remove the heart of stone from your flesh and give you a heart of flesh.”

But who could have forseen the means? Jesus’ own heart—a heart of flesh—was pierced for us, and only by being sprinkled in His blood can our stony hearts be transformed. And now, rather than being solely fixated in our own good, we love Him who died for us and long to see Him glorified in all we do.

Lord, thank you for taking away my heart of stone and giving me a heart of flesh! Be glorified in all my joys, in all my pain, in all my life forever and ever!

Jesus Directs Our Steps

“Many are the plans in the mind of a man.”

This has always been the case; Adam and Eve’s primordial rebellion was in one sense a refusal to accept God’s plan because of a hell-bent insistence on establishing their own.

And ever since that day, we all as human beings manifest that same strong-willed stubbornness that our will be done. We want our plans to succeed, and when they fall through we compensate by building more bigger, more elaborate ones. We believe that, given enough sophistication and effort, that our plans—our kingdoms—will be firmly established. But listen to what Jesus says:

“Many are the plans in the mind of a man, but it is the purpose of the Lord that will stand.”

And again,

“The heart of man plans his way, but the Lord establishes his steps.”

It is not our word that will stand the test of time, but God’s.

“The counsel of the Lord stands forever, the plans of his heart to all generations.”

And indeed, at times God specifically thwarts our best efforts and renders them useless, futile, and ineffective:

“The Lord brings the counsel of the nations to nothing; he frustrates the plans of the peoples.”

But He does not subject us to futility to mock or condemn us! No, when our best plans fail and our most careful intentions falter, He is graciously reminding us that He is in control:

“Our God is in the heavens; he does all that he pleases.”

“I know, O Lord, that the way of man is not in himself, that it is not in man who walks to direct his steps.”

I know this, but I forget. Help me Lord, to remember this day that it is you who establishes our way and directs our steps, and may every step that you ordain bring me closer to You!

Jesus Provides for His People

Nowhere in Scripture is it written that Jesus’ followers are guaranteed to be rich. Nowhere is it written that they shall receive every material comfort that they might possibly crave.

What is promised, however, is that those who believe in Him shall be sufficiently provided for. The same God that feeds the sparrows and clothes the lilies has promised to feed and clothe us as well.

But His gracious provision is meted out in daily installments, and not in a lump sum for us to do with as we please. We are instructed to pray, “Give us this day our daily bread,” not “Give us a lifetime supply of all good things that we may forget you and be content.”

Indeed, hoarded blessings become worthless, just as those who attempted to hoard manna in jars soon found that it bred maggots and stank. The greedy prodigal acquired his lifetimes’ inheritance and spent it, leaving him lower than the pigs he served. And he who boasted that he would build barns and store up years’ worth of goods to enjoy—he was called a fool by God because all his wealth could not save him from death that very night.

But blessed is he who looks to God to provide for him! Just as Elijah was fed by ravens and Hagar was led to an oasis in her hour of need, so we are provided with everything that is needful, day by day, moment by moment. And even if persecution and confiscation of goods should be our lot, we are always provided with the bread and water of life that are found in Jesus.

His provisions know no end, and are gifted to us each day as tokens of His never-failing love. Thank you, Lord, for giving us everything we need in Christ!

“The Lord is my chosen portion and my cup.”

“So Abraham called the name of that place, ‘The Lord will provide’; as it is said to this day, ‘On the mount of the Lord it shall be provided.'”

Jesus Will Have No Other Gods Before Him

The first and greatest of the ten commandments is,

“You shall have no other gods before me.”

None shall be esteemed ahead of Him, and none shall endure in His presence.

“There is no other god besides me, a righteous God and a Savior; there is none besides me.”

He is rightly called a jealous God, for He says,

“My glory I will not give to another.”

And indeed, in every contest of divine power He has proven the victor. He executed judgement on the gods of Egypt by sending wasting plagues that decimated the land and proved them powerless.

He caused Dagon, the god of the Philistines, to bow before Him in subservience—even to its own destruction!

On Mount Carmel the speechless Baal was shown a fraud, while the true God answered from heaven with consuming, holy fire.

And when Sennacherib of Assyria boasted that the Lord of Hosts was like the other gods of the land and unable to deliver, the angel of the Lord went forth slew 185,000, and there was no deliverance for them.

In everything God has the supremacy, and He will not allow a rival to seduce the hearts of His people. Though we often make golden calves for ourselves and look to them for security, comfort, or meaning, He will not allow them to endure. He will graciously take them from us, burn them with fire, grind them to dust, and then cast them on the stream that takes away our sins forever.

Perish the gods who did not make heaven and earth, but

“You shall worship the Lord your God, and him only shall you serve.”

“Salvation belongs to the Lord; your blessing be on your people!”