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.)
Perhaps the first thing that we should know about Jesus is that He is merciful. Mercy is the withholding of God’s righteous judgment of our sin. In other words, He does not immediately mete out deserved punishment. Romans 3:23 states the obvious: “For all have sinned and come short of the glory of God.” Romans 6:23a tells us what our sin merits: “For the wages of sin is death.” A wholly holy God thus has every right to dispense both physical and spiritual death as soon as we sin. Of course, had He chosen that course of action, Adam and Eve would have been destroyed, and humankind would have ceased to exist. Our very existence, then, must be attributed to God’s merciful nature, an eternal nature that precedes all of our sin.