Playing Cards with God

Playing Cards (Photo credit: ccarlstead)

What card are you holding in your hand? One day soon, you’ll play that very card before God.

Imagine this: As you stand before God one day, He says, “Lay down your card.” On the table before you, you lay down your ragged card, the card which you’ve been carrying around and using all your life. It says, “Judgment without mercy.” God then spreads out His large stack of cards, each one representing different moments from your life. As each one is laid down next to your “Judgment without mercy” card, you begin to realize that your card is now the evaluating standard for everything you have ever done, and the cost to you is going to be enormous.

Now imagine a different scenario: As you stand before God one day, you lay down your well-worn card. It says, “Mercy!” God smiles at you as He sets His stack of cards aside without even looking at them. Then He laughs, saying, “Mercy trumps everything!”

Which card is in your hand?

(My rendering of James 2:13 and Matthew 7:2.)

Head Signs

Apr13

Angel 013 (Photo credit: Juliett-Foxtrott)

Old Testament Nazarites, such as Samson, wore long hair as a symbol of consecration to God. In the New Testament, married women wore long hair as a symbol of marital consecration. The Scriptures say that this sign of submission is important “because of the angels” (1 Corinthians 11:10, NIV). Could it be that godly submission to a husband provides a wife with a spiritual covering which is recognized by angels?

The writer of Hebrews tells us that angels are “ministering spirits sent to serve those who will inherit salvation” (Hebrews 1:4). Do angels see a spiritual mark, as it were, on godly wives, indicating that these are the ones whom the angels are to serve?

A man who is not considerate and honoring toward his wife loses spiritual strength; his prayers become impotent. (See 1 Peter 3:7.) Perhaps in the same way, a woman who is not submitted in spirit to the needs and glories of her husband loses the personal ministering of angels to herself.

Although the sign on the head need not be literal, the spiritual principle is firmly established: the way we obey God in our marriages has profound implications for our spiritual status–and, therefore, our entire being.

Responses to Nakedness (last time!)

Apr4

Jesus Alone on the Cross (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

When Jesus told the parable of the Good Samaritan, was He cognizant of the fact that He Himself would soon be in the same situation of being exposed before others? As He hung on the cross, Jesus experienced all of the varying “responses to nakedness.” There were accusers (like the serpent); there were those who mocked and sneered (like Ham); there were those who fled and “hid their faces” from another’s disfigurement (like the priest and the Levite); and there were a few who honored and ministered to the wounded one (like Shem, Japheth, and the Good Samaritan).

How do we, as God’s people, respond to revealed brokenness in our spouses? How do we respond to exposed neediness in their spirits and souls? We can reflect God Almighty, the One whose image we bear, when we do the following:

when we resolve always to move toward our spouses emotionally and spiritually,
when we graciously offer healing,
when we pour out from our own lives (although we are also broken and needy),
and when we resolve to bring honor to our covenant partners.

In hanging on the cross in nakedness and shame, Jesus did what the Good Samaritan could not do: He took the wounds onto Himself, took the nakedness onto Himself, and offered His own clothing and wholeness to the broken man. This is what God offers to do for each one of us: take the shame that we are trying in vain to hide with our flimsy fig leaves, and fully cover it instead with His own skin.

God’s response to our nakedness is to make it His.