Today’s Devotional: The Enormity of What Jesus Wants for Us
In John 3, we read about a pharisee named Nicodemus having a conversation with Jesus about his connection to God. Nicodemus has seen what Jesus has done and concluded Jesus must be acting on God’s behalf.
Nicodemus quickly finds himself in a position of confusion. Jesus has turned the conversation to the pharisee’s need to be “born again.” As Jill Carattini puts in in this devotional from Slice of Infinity, Nicodemus’ reply of “How can this be?” is stated as “one reaching for light to see dim outlines of a picture before him.” He is no longer a confidant leader of Israel, rather he is a man searching for the truth.
Nicodemus’ questions often mirror our own. When we first feel the pull of Christ on our hearts we can find ourselves overwhelmed with the enormity of His vision for humanity. His divinity we can understand immediately. It is his offer of salvation that we initially find incomprehensible.
Here’s an excerpt from Carattini’s devotional “Of Mystery and Semantics:”
Nicodemus replied as many of us reply on a journey of faith, belief, doubt, and confusion—as one reaching for light to see dim outlines of a picture before him. “How can this be?” he asked, and the conversation that followed showed a man not asking hypothetically but actually, as one really longing to understand the logistics of rebirth. Nicodemus came to Jesus in the obscurity of darkness and found himself confronted by a conversation about flesh and spirit and light. “[W]hoever lives by the truth comes into the light, so that it may be seen plainly that what he has done has been done through God” (3:21).
G.K. Chesterton once said that it is important for the landlady who is considering a lodger to know his income, but it is more important to know his philosophy. Likewise, for the general about to fight an enemy, it is important to know the enemy’s numbers, but still more important to know the enemy’s worldview. “[T]he question” writes Chesterton, “is not whether the theory of the cosmos affects matters, but whether in the long run, anything else affects them.”(1) The big picture is always the most important picture. And when the picture is God, God outgrows every frame through which our eyes begin to see the divine. In a manner reminiscent of the exchange between Aslan and Lucy, God as noun, verb, and all always moves beyond the God we imagine.
“Aslan,” said Lucy, “You’re bigger.”
“I am not,” said the great lion. “But every year you grow; you will find me bigger.”
Read the rest of the devotional over at rzim.org.
Do you ever feel like confused about the Gospel like Nicodemus was?
The Bible can be a very confusing and daunting book to read, especially for the unbeliever or those who seek to pervert the Word for unholy use. Many an atheist reads through the Gospels and picks apart verses and passages that seem contradictory, or they take them out of context so they seem to say something other than their true meaning.
I always strive to remember what I feel is the most important of Jesus’ teachings, in Matthew 22:37-40 — “‘Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.’This is the first and greatest commandment. And the second is like it: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’ All the Law and the Prophets hang on these two commandments.”
The Ten Commandments and the Bible itself is boiled down to those few words from Jesus. The stage is set and the lessons are played out in the pages of the Bible, but as long as I keep in mind that as long as I love God — demonstrated by my belief in Him and by keeping to His instruction — and love my neighbors — by treating everyone Christ-like, the way I would want them to treat me — then I am doing what God commands. Knowing this as I read the Bible it then has a deeper meaning.
Like Nicodemus, I believe in Jesus and often struggle to understand. I know I am in the wrong and I believe Jesus is is the way the truth and the life. Sometimes I get a little understanding only to realize later that I still don’t understand very much. Like the disciples, I often don’t get it but what else is there to do but keep seeking.