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| My beautiful wife, Jodi, on our wedding day! |
This week we're talking about our union with Christ! I'm constantly blown away by the reality of this relationship. I can kind of think in terms of a marriage relationship because I am married. When Jodi and I dated, I recognized certain strengths in her and I knew I had certain strengths I was going to bring to the marriage. For instance, when we married, we agreed I would handle keeping up with the finances. I obviously thought she was cute, had a great personality, and a thousand other things that certainly told me I was marrying up! We each brought a certain amount of strengths (assets) and weaknesses (liabilities) to the marriage.
Our union with Christ has many similarities. We bring a lot of things to the relationship. However, if we're honest, none of them are assets. We bring sin, death, struggle, and a lot of things that we think make us good people. All of these are liabilities to coming to faith in Christ. The good news is that Christ brings everything we need into our relationship. He brings forgiveness, hope, life, wisdom, power and more! We have hope and life because Jesus has given them to us, not because we had something awesome to offer.
There's one more thing I want to mention before I end this post. Marriage is more than a ceremony! Marriage is without a doubt the most crucial relationship, between two human beings, on the planet in my mind. It is not a time and place where people gather to hear two people profess their love and make a lifelong commitment to each other. The marriage is the relationship that follows the ceremony. It doesn't end with a ceremony! It really just begins at that point. So is a relationship with Christ. Many people today when asked if they're a Christian, say yes and share about how they "asked Jesus into their heart" or had some other religious experience at an earlier point in their life. However, their is no practical outworking of their faith at all. They have no love for the Lord, no desire for obedience toward Christ, and no willingness to be in community with God's people. Salvation is not a date on a calendar 25 years ago, but it works itself out in a practical daily walk with Christ now. Imagine getting married and them moving out, never calling, never spending any time with your spouse, hooking up with all kinds of other people and then telling people you were married so everything was fine. That's crazy! Please don't be persuaded that just because you prayed a prayer or raised your hand when a preacher talked that you've trusted Christ. The reality is that many have had an experience, but have no concern for Christ and think they'll be in Heaven because "they're good people." If you've been around me for any amount of time, you already know what I think about that! In the paragraph above this one I dealt with what we bring to our marriage with Christ and what he brings. Our stuff is nothing...it's all baggage! It's all liabilities and frustrations! Christ brings everything we need for a relationship with him. If you're hope is in a prayer and your own self assurance that you're a "good person" I encourage you to repent and turn in faith to Christ today! The bridegroom is waiting! Trust Jesus today!
I'm praying for you as you rest in Christ, knowing that transformation is possible through your relationship with him! Email, Facebook, text, or call if there's anyway I can help you this week.
Billy
