That is why, for Christ’s sake, I delight in weaknesses, in insults, in hardships, in persecutions, in difficulties. For when I am weak, then I am strong. (2 Corinthians 12:10)
The Lord Jesus Christ is our Savior and He is our opposite. He is infinite and we are finite. He is omnipotent and we are weak. He is Omniscient and we know very little. He is omnipresent and we are bound by space and time. And that is the way God intended it to be all the way back in creation. Our limitations are not a result of the fall; rather, they are simply part of God’s perfect plan for humanity.
God never intended for us to be His equal. The terrible arrogance of the fallen angels who rebelled against God in heaven drove them to want to be equal to God. Adam and Eve succumbed to the same desire when they rebelled against God in the Garden of Eden. Satan, the fallen angel who appeared as a shrewd serpent, hissed to our first parents, “You will be like God” (Genesis 3:5). Tragically, they believed Satan’s lie.
Equality was not what God had in mind when He created angelic beings in heaven and humanity on earth. There is no more grotesque demonstration of rebellion than when we rise up and try to “be like God.” Make no mistake, the greatest sin of the human race is the sin of trying to overcome the oppositeness between the Creator and the creature. And we all do this every time we try to remove God from the throne of our lives so that we can sit there ourselves.
Listen, there was only one Person in the history of the world who could and did truthfully and rightfully claim equality with God, because there was no oppositeness in Him.
I and the Father are one. (John 10:30)
Anyone who has seen me has seen the Father. Don’t you believe that I am in the Father, and that the Father is in me? (John 14:9-10)
Only the God-Man could make such a claim. Because Jesus was fully God and fully man, He was equal with the Father in every way. Only when we let God be God can we get on board with the perfect plan He has for our imperfect lives. And in that perfect plan, we learn this overwhelming truth: Opposites Attract! When God in Christ draws us to Himself, the pathway is now open for us to bring our oppositeness to Him that He might apply His ointment –
- When we bring our fears, He applies the ointment of His faith.
- When we bring our doubts, He applies the ointment of His belief.
- When we bring our hopelessness, He applies the ointment of His hope.
- When we bring our weakness, He applies the ointment of His strength.
- When we bring our discouragements, He applies the ointment of His joy.
Jesus Christ is wholly Opposite, wholly Other . . . and I hope you find that truth wholly Attractive!
This is the Gospel. This is grace for your race. NEVER FORGET THAT . . . AMEN!
Grace for the Race 