Jaw-dropping Jewels about Jesus
Rarely does Jesus, God the Son, do exactly what we expect of Him. It seems odd that He so frequently surprises us, given that He never changes. Hebrews 13:8 makes this absolute statement: “Jesus the same yesterday, and today, and forever.” Still, though He is blessedly consistent in His goodness, Jesus does unforeseen things. Even when He does what is expected, He does not always do it in the way that we anticipate. Let us join with Jesus on a jaw-dropping journey. (I will be using this opening paragraph for each of the brief messages in this series. The following material will change daily.)
As we have been studying for weeks now, we are rich because of “the unsearchable riches of Christ” (Ephesians 3:8), “the riches of His glory” (Ephesians 3:16). Jesus Christ’s rich character characterizes His relationship with us. This statement is not tautological. Our characters do not always characterize our relationships with others. For example, we often mean well but still manage to hurt someone else’s feelings. Often, we want to help but are limited by time, strength, proximity, finances, and ability (you don’t want me repairing your roof!). Sometimes, we would come alongside but do not know that there is a need. None of these limitations pertain to the perfect character of Jesus. Ephesians 2:4 is an exciting example, telling us that God “is rich in mercy.” Mercy is the withholding of God’s righteous judgment on mankind for sin. We have more than 7 billion examples of this rich mercy on earth right now. Romans 6:23a reminds us that “the wages of sin is death.” All of us have sinned (Romans 3:23), but we are still living! In fact, each sin merits death. Thus, each one of us is the recipient of multiple mercies. Multiple sins of more than 7 billion people all added together – that is an enormous number. Yet, the richness of our Savior’s mercy provides life now and the opportunity to all to receive life eternal through faith in Jesus Christ. As Frederick Faber wrote, “There is a wideness in God’s mercy” – a rich wideness.