Help yourself to the divine nature of God. You can have as much as you want–plate, after plate, after plate…
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“What are you after?”
Hmmm. What if Jesus asked me that? What if he asked you?
What am I after? What do I spend the majority of time and effort pursuing? Success? Loving relationships with my family and friends? Good health? A comfortable lifestyle? Happiness?
Too many things run through my mind.
There is nothing bad about any of these. But in my constant quest for these basically good things, I sometimes forget about Jesus. I forget to keep pursuing him. I forget that he is the main thing that I really should be after…
This is what he asked his first disciples to do, and this is what he wants from us. So how did they do it? How did they go after Jesus?
They turned from their old lives. They left what was familiar. They did not run from suffering. And they let him lead. Even when it wasn’t popular. Even when it cost.
That sounds very different than striving solely for comfort and control and good feelings.
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Jesus wants to remind us that he operates on much different terms than we do. The limits we live within do not apply to the Son of God. He is not restricted like we are. He is “in touch with what is beyond our horizons,” seeing and knowing and creating and redeeming in ways that we can’t even imagine yet. He is all the good things we imagine about him, and infinitely more.
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I want to hand it over–the anger, the tears, the doubt. He says he will hold my soul for me while I’m in the middle of a mess. And he tells me that I can trust him with it all. I don’t need to keep checking on it, recounting all the hard things, or asking Jesus if he’s still keeping it safe.
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God had set His heart upon them and chose them SIMPLY BECAUSE HE LOVED THEM. And He set His heart upon us and chose us just the same.
Sometimes I think there must be a catch. Surely it can’t be this easy…
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So what compels us to climb up to the heights? The high ground? The places we have to labor to get to and sometimes struggle to stand on? Why do we want to go up there?
I guess we somehow realize that even though the climb can be painful and scary, something at the top is worth it. We endure the climb because of what we hope to see. Often a gorgeous, awe-inspiring, breathtaking view of the land or water below is the reward for our work. It’s something we could not possibly see from ground level.
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