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March 17 - December 29, 2024
no one in human history has ever been more approachable than Jesus Christ.
That’s what we all are like, confessing Christ with our lips but generally avoiding deep fellowship with him, out of a muted understanding of his heart.
He doesn’t simply meet us at our place of need; he lives in our place of need.
If sin were the color blue, we do not occasionally say or do something blue; all that we say, do, and think has some taint of blue.
If you are in Christ, you have a Friend who, in your sorrow, will never lob down a pep talk from heaven. He cannot bear to hold himself at a distance. Nothing can hold him back. His heart is too bound up with yours.
“No, wait”—we say, cautiously approaching Jesus—“you don’t understand. I’ve really messed up, in all kinds of ways.” I know, he responds. “You know most of it, sure. Certainly more than what others see. But there’s perversity down inside me that is hidden from everyone.” I know it all. “Well—the thing is, it isn’t just my past. It’s my present too.” I understand. “But I don’t know if I can break free of this any time soon.” That’s the only kind of person I’m here to help. “The burden is heavy—and heavier all the time.” Then let me carry it. “It’s too much to bear.” Not for me.
We cling to him, to be sure. But our grip is that of a two-year-old amid the stormy waves of life. His sure grasp never falters. Psalm 63:8 expresses the double-sided truth: “My soul clings to you; your right hand upholds me.”
The inveterate people-pleasing that looks to others like niceness but which you know to be fear of man.
even our best love is a shadow of a greater love.
he is angrier than you could ever be about the wrong done to you.
Won’t most of us admit that even with our best friends, we don’t feel fully comfortable divulging everything about our lives?
He offers us a friendship that gets underneath the pain of our loneliness.
But it is another thing, unutterably more real, to be swept up in his embrace, to feel the warmth, to hear his beating heart within his chest, to instantly know the protective grip of his arms.
If your heart be hard, his mercies are tender. If your heart be dead, he has mercy to liven it. If you be sick, he has mercy to heal you. If you be sinful, he has mercies to sanctify and cleanse you.
the good in our earthly dads is a faint pointer to the true goodness of our heavenly Father,
He is the Father of whom every human father is a shadow
“that this God in whose hand are all creatures, is your Father, and is much more tender of you than you are, or can be, of yourself.”
