A Royal Wedding Just Like Mine

This blog is designed to give people an inner look at a devotional life. Taking time each day to spend time with the Lord. The hope is if you travel on this journey with Rev. Jacob Shaw, you may be more inclined to spend time with the Lord as well. I encourage the use of a devotional, a scripture reading and prayer, then finally some form of artistic mark to tie it all together. 

Today's devotional is taken from: Zacharias, Ravi. The Logic of God: 52 Christian Essentials for the Heart and Mind. Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 2019. [E-Book] Chapter 12: A Royal Wedding Just Like Mine

Opening Thought: Eventually I knew I would come along a chapter that talked about marriage or romantic love in relation to our marriage as a church (the bride) to Christ (the bridegroom). I knew this would come up because any theologian worth their salt should look into marriage as a metaphor because it navigates the bond between us and Christ so wonderfully. Plus, having has seen several Zacharias’ talks, I have seen him use his marriage as an anecdotal springboard to his larger apologetic positions. If you have been following this blog, at least since I started Zacharias' book, you will know that Zacharias was revealed to be the perpetrator in a sex-scandal. Now his own ministry team has come out and affirmed that the allegations were true, and if you want to read more about what my thoughts were and what RZIMs said, here are the links.

https://devotional-reverend.blogspot.com/2021/03/introduction-to-logic-of-god.html

https://www.rzim.org/read/rzim-updates/board-statement

I have been dreading coming along to the wedding theology because I knew that it would stir in me a great disappointment towards Zacharias, knowing that in his talks and writing he spoke with such affection and admiration for his wife, while he was clearly not living out his words.

Though if we think of our relationship with God as a marriage, how many of us can say we have always been faithful to God. When I think of it in those term, the violation that Zacharias committed seem to show perfectly the very reason why our relationship with Christ is so valuable, because even those who can articulate so wonderfully the love they feel, can also become overcome by the lure of sin, we all can. This reminds us that no matter who we are in our faith, faith must always be lived out. Sometimes living out the faith is resisting great evil within.  

The devotional begins with: 1 John 3:1,16

See what great love the Father has lavished on us, that we should be called children of God! And that is what we are! … This is how we know what love is: Jesus Christ laid down his life for us. And we ought to lay down our lives for our brothers and sisters.

Second Thought: The overall point, that Zacharias makes, in this chapter is that the reason the first miracle is preformed at a wedding is because the wedding metaphor is so important. When we are married, we are in essence surrendering our live to each other. This is very much how our love with God is. Christ surrenders to (via the cross and in his ministry) and in doing so lifts us up. That is Christ extending the invitation to join the heavenly Kingdom and heavenly family. When we surrender to God, we lift God up in worship. We can’t do much for an all-powerful God, but we can life by sing praise, and sharing the gospel because that helps us to continue to God’s endeavor to lift other into His salvation. When we surrender to God, we also must, to a degree, surrender to servanthood for all people, because we see the face of God in humanity and God’s fingerprints on creation. We thus become bonded in a familial sense to other Christians and, generally, the rest of the world. We are called to always serve because we are to lift up the world to the will of God as Christ does for us.

Continual Work: If you are having trouble anchoring yourself in your faith, try thinking of your faith as a powerful familial bond. See how your actions and feeling change if you keep that in mind this week.  

What Rev. Jacob is Working On: I want to spend some time looking at my familial relationship and see how they could improve if I look upon my family more actively as people who hold the image of God. I get a long well with family, but maybe this exercise will give me deeper insight.

Rev. Jacob’s Scripture time: Matthew 5:28

But I tell you that anyone who looks at a woman lustfully had already committed adultery with her in his heart.

I think this passage would challenge many people. We are generally comfortable with taking responsibility for outward physical actions, but we do not so much believe that our thoughts or feelings should be held accountable. Within mortal courts our inner struggles should not be accountable because our thoughts and feels are usually hard enough for us to parse through on our own, let alone a jury or judge, even if we could honestly extract the thoughts and feeling of people.  But nothing in us is hidden from God, including our thoughts and feelings. This may be hard for people to tolerate now-a-days, particularly around sex, because lust and sex is so passé now, it is seen as a marketing tool and a plaything. Then again so is everything that makes us human, it seems like our more basic impulses drive most of media and pop culture. Now if you are entering into a marriage, even though we know we cannot eliminate all the thoughts and feelings that may try to pry you away from your commitment, you are willing surrendering to a spouse. You both agree that you will serve the other, to be dedicated to the other, and lift the other while also choosing to exclude all other people from your impulses. Love is worth it, but it will be difficult. In the same light we need to do this with our faith. If we find our heart moving from God in the pursuit of worldly things, we must hold strong to our vows as Christ does for us.     

Closing Words: I hope you enjoyed and were lifted by this devotional time; it is enormously important to take time for God each day. By doing so, you welcome God into your life, and in turn you will be able to better see the world through the eyes of God, rather than God through the world's eyes.

Prayer for your day: God, You call us to be faithful. Faithful in our worldly commitments, and of course faithful to You. We often think of faith as belief, but it is also dedication. When we have a conversion to Your love we also fall to commitment. Help us remember that vow, so we can in turn be lift by Your mercy as we lift You in song and praise. Amen.    

Artistic Close: Memes are fun.