Christian Counseling Service -- Devotions

Sitting on a cornflake

Sunday, March 6, 2016

2 Corinthians 5:20-21
We are ambassadors for Christ, as if God were appealing through us. We implore you on behalf of Christ, be reconciled to God. For our sake he made him to be sin who did not know sin, so that we might become the righteousness of God in him.

Paul's poetry rings true. God makes himself weak to be strong, and we are called to the same path. Come join us, Paul says, and be reconciled to God. Become the righteousness of God in Christ. Richard Rohr writes, "Jesus came to give us the courage to trust and allow our inherent union with God, and he modeled it for us in the world."

The big words shake out to simply mean that Jesus is the groom, and we are the bride. This is more than metaphor. Rohr continues, "The very daring, seemingly impossible idea of union with God is still something we're so afraid of that most of us won't allow ourselves to think of it ... but the Eastern Fathers of the Church saw it as the whole point of the Incarnation and the precise meaning of salvation." They called it "divinization."

Another big word. John Lennon of the Beatles wrote, "I am he as you are he as you are me and we are all together." But the many single syllables are just as confusing as the one big word. Who is who?

Perhaps this is not meant to be explained or even written about, except in poetry. Marital union is intimate and intended to be kept a secret between two lovers. God's love for me is like that. And he wants my love for him to be like that. As Jesus prayed for us, "As you, Father are in me, may they also be in us, so that the world may believe" (John 17).

The prayers of Jesus and Paul recall how God spoke his love to Abram, "I will bless you and make your name great ... and in you all the families of the earth will be blessed" (Genesis 12). God's love draws me into him and then I pour out what he's given me onto all the world. This flow of love never ends. It just keeps going and going and going. Even unto the end of the world.

Father, in you we are made a new creation. Old things have passed away, and behold, the new has come. All this from you, Lord, and I will bless you at all times. Your praise shall ever be in my mouth. Let my soul glory in you; let others hear me and be glad. I seek you and you answer me and deliver me from all my fears. Even today, Lord, let me taste and see your goodness.

Devotions Archive

Sitting on a cornflake

Sunday, March 6, 2016