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.)
We continue to search out “the unsearchable riches of Christ” (Ephesians 3:8). We briefly considered Hebrews 12:29 yesterday: “For our God is a consuming fire.” Our holy God is ever deserving of our honest and heartfelt worship. Of course, His holiness presents a huge problem to us, for there are not degrees of holiness. (There are degrees of sanctification; we will consider that subject in following days.) Either a person is absolutely holy, or he is absolutely unholy. Unfortunately for us, we are not holy. I John 1:10 is necessarily frank: “If we say that we have not sinned, we make Him a liar, and His word is not in us.” Yes, “all have sinned, and come short of the glory of God” (Romans 3:23), and that includes you and me. What we need is the holiness of Jesus – and that is exactly what He gives to us out of His “unsearchable riches.” We receive “the gift of righteousness” (Romans 5:17) such that we are now “justified [declared righteous] freely by His grace through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus” (Romans 3:24). His absolute perfection is placed on our account (what theologians call imputed righteousness) so that we can now approach Him without being consumed. Instead, we are welcomed.