Living Up to God's Expectations
“He was not at all like the psychologist’s picture of the integrated, balanced, adjusted, happily married, employed, popular citizen. You can’t really be very well adjusted to your world if it says you ‘have a devil’ and ends by nailing you up naked to a stake of wood.” (C.S. Lewis quoted by Philip Yancey, The Jesus I Never I Knew, Harper Collins, 1995)
“but he was pierced for our transgressions, he was crushed for our iniquities; the punishment that brought us peace was upon him, and by his wounds we are healed.” Isa 53:5 (NIV)
You would think that everyone would have loved him. He healed the sick, delivered the oppressed, and fed the hungry. He even raised the dead! He should have been heralded as the Messiah, crowned as the King of Kings, and hailed as a prophet. Actually he was . . . for a while. Then they turned on him. In one fell swoop they traded him for the release of a common criminal. Even his closest followers abandoned him.
What happened? Jesus simply refused to live up to false expectations. He had only the will of the Father in mind and wouldn’t trade obedience to God for the kingdoms of the world. After he was forsaken, the perfect picture of humanity was reduced to a bloody mass of pulp at the hands of his accusers. People will turn on you when you don’t live up to their expectations.
But it was in that messy beating and death that he accomplished the perfect will of God. “He who had no sin, was made sin for us, so that in Him we would become the righteousness of God.” In rejecting the accolades of the world for the approval of the Father he lived up to greater expectations than anyone would have thought. By not living up to our expectations he met the expectations of God. Now those who love him have the greatest reason of all. Our sins have been forgiven. Who would have expected that?
“but he was pierced for our transgressions, he was crushed for our iniquities; the punishment that brought us peace was upon him, and by his wounds we are healed.” Isa 53:5 (NIV)
You would think that everyone would have loved him. He healed the sick, delivered the oppressed, and fed the hungry. He even raised the dead! He should have been heralded as the Messiah, crowned as the King of Kings, and hailed as a prophet. Actually he was . . . for a while. Then they turned on him. In one fell swoop they traded him for the release of a common criminal. Even his closest followers abandoned him.
What happened? Jesus simply refused to live up to false expectations. He had only the will of the Father in mind and wouldn’t trade obedience to God for the kingdoms of the world. After he was forsaken, the perfect picture of humanity was reduced to a bloody mass of pulp at the hands of his accusers. People will turn on you when you don’t live up to their expectations.
But it was in that messy beating and death that he accomplished the perfect will of God. “He who had no sin, was made sin for us, so that in Him we would become the righteousness of God.” In rejecting the accolades of the world for the approval of the Father he lived up to greater expectations than anyone would have thought. By not living up to our expectations he met the expectations of God. Now those who love him have the greatest reason of all. Our sins have been forgiven. Who would have expected that?
Labels: expectations, salvation
posted by jawbone at
10:05 PM
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