In bringing many sons to glory, it was fitting that God, for whom and through whom everything exists, should make the author of their salvation perfect through suffering. Both the one who makes men holy and those who are made holy are of the same family. So Jesus is not ashamed to call them brothers. (Hebrews 2:10-11)
When it really comes down to it, the desire of God to bring us to glory was greater than his love even for his Son.
In order to bring us back to him, he had to give up something. That something was Jesus. He gave Jesus’ ability so that we could have the ability to come before him and be part of him.
Without Jesus’ ability, we have no ability. For us to have power, Jesus had to give us his through his life, and resurrection.
Since we suffer, Jesus had to suffer; since we die, Jesus had to die; since we sweat and are hot and dirty, Jesus had to sweat and be hot and dirty.
Since he is the author of our salvation, he had to tailor the salvation to us, his people. He couldn’t give us a half-way salvation, but had to come all the way to life and finally death, just like everybody else.
Sometimes you want something so hard that you have to give up something you love for it. In education, you have to give up time and money to get what you want.
In marriage, you have to give up your freedom to be alone and a certain degree of personal autonomy. In having children, you give up the ability to do whatever you want for several years. In being a Christian, you give up your control over your life. God gave up Jesus just to get us.
So the one who makes men holy (Jesus through the power of God) and those who are made holy (us) are of the same family: we all lived, sweated, worked and died, both us and Jesus.
It makes it a little easier to know that God knows, through Jesus what we are going through. God is so good, and we are not. We cannot touch him.
However, Jesus came and lived and died sinlessly. We can touch him. And since he was sinless, he can touch God.
He is like a transformer that brings us into contact with the awesome current of God without our being fried by his sheer goodness.
He knows how hard it is. And he loves you anyway.
No comments:
Post a Comment
To comment, post your comment and click the anonymous button. It would be nice if you signed it so I could know who you are.
You are welcome to say anything you want as long as it is nice. If I don't like it, or it is ugly, I will take it off, place it into the garbage disposal, grind it up, and allow it to be flushed into the Gulf of Mexico where it will be eaten by a fish and then excreted where it will lie on the bottom of the ocean until it is covered up by other comments.