Jesus is the way and leads the way

 

I’ve a calendar that is more like a journal. It asks questions that prompt plans, reflection, and priorities. It is also secular. One page asks about what didn’t work last month and how I could do better. In answering, my focus is on the leadership of Jesus. He has a plan for my life and it is in listening to Him and doing what He says. I don’t like the idea of trying to improve my failures because figuring things out by myself causes most of them in the first place.

Today’s devotional puts a focus on the plan of God, not on a to-do list for each day but His goal for me and how He accomplishes that goal.

For it was fitting that he, for whom and by whom all things exist, in bringing many sons to glory, should make the founder of their salvation perfect through suffering. (Hebrews 2:10)

Although he was a son, he learned obedience through what he suffered. And being made perfect, he became the source of eternal salvation to all who obey him, (Hebrews 5:8–9)

Basic to daily direction is this main objective: He is taking me to glory — to be like Jesus for all eternity — and He will do it through the life, death, and resurrection life of Jesus Christ, summed up in these words “the founder of my salvation who was perfected through suffering.” It was by His death that Jesus became my perfect leader. He leads the way because He is the way:

Jesus said, “I am the way, and the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me. (John 14:6)

While it makes no sense to those who reject Him, Calvary was God’s great wisdom. It displays His holiness and hatred of sin, but also His power. As MacArthur writes, Christ endured in a few hours what it would take an eternity to expend on sinners and even then, we could not atone for our own sin. His suffering also displayed God’s love for mankind and points to His great grace in that the death of Jesus was substitutionary; He died for me so I can live forever.

The Greek word translated “founder” or “author” in some translations is archēgos. It means “pioneer” or “leader” and used of someone who blazed a trail for others to follow. This person did not stand behind giving orders but was always out front leading the way. In that sense, Jesus is the One who goes before me as my trailblazer. When I write my plans on my calendar, I’m trying always to listen to Him for direction.

The older I get (and the more my body yells at me) the more I agree with MacArthur’s statement that life seems most anxious and fearful when death seems closer. As he says, this is a trail I cannot travel by myself. I worshiped this morning singing several songs. Three of them had words about dying and going to glory. This devotional reminds me of what Jesus said to His disciples:

Yet a little while and the world will see me no more, but you will see me. Because I live, you also will live. (John 14:19)

He is the perfect trailblazer and can lead me and all His people out of life here, through the shadow of death, and into the presence of the Father. As He holds my hand, He will lead me to the other side and I will know the reality of these NT words: “O death, where is your victory? O death, where is your sting?” (1 Corinthians 15:55)

Our family is busy making plans for the coming year including a major reunion, a smaller one with just our adult children, trips and other events. My hubby is working (part-time from home) on projects that could run until 2029. Some days, I feel my age and want to curl up and be done. Other days, I’m ambitious, but not too energetic. In all of this, the sense of being led by Jesus is an incredible comfort and encouragement.

PRAY: Lord Jesus, You are the Master of my fate and trusting You makes the fears go away and anticipation take over. At the same time, my hubby’s words about “someday God will say I am done” are often on my mind. As You take me through this life and toward the next, grant me the same peace and joy as You always have. I see You blazing the trail, opening doors, granting abilities and strength. My heart is entirely grateful and always amazed that You love me so much.

PONDER: The world is filled with people who have no confidence in their future nor any idea that they can have eternal life with their Creator. Think about ways to share that with those He puts in my path.

 

 

Value of suffering…

When sin threatens, the bodily form of my suffering Savior at Calvary turns my heart from temptation to humility and resolve — for He bore all the sin that I commit. His death and resurrection made forgiveness of sin and salvation possible. My sin mocks the purpose for which He died.

By oppression and judgment he was taken away; and as for his generation, who considered that he was cut off out of the land of the living, stricken for the transgression of my people? (Isaiah 53:8)

The good news of such suffering is about the effect it has on resisting sin. As the Bible tells me, “Those who belong to Christ Jesus have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires” (Galatians 5:24).

Yet I cannot focus on my sin or even on my part in resisting sin. If I do, I become obsessed with trying to win the battle instead of remembering that this battle has already been won at the Cross. My focus needs to be on Jesus and what He has done and continues to do in my life.

Also, I need to think the way Christ thinks about temptation, sin, and even suffering.

Since therefore Christ suffered in the flesh, arm yourselves with the same way of thinking, for whoever has suffered in the flesh has ceased from sin... (1 Peter 4:1)

Temptation and sin can be appealing, but Christ didn’t think so. He knows how it appears to His eternal and holy Father. It is an affront to all that God is and deadly to those He loves. By arming myself in His way of thinking, I abhor sin and any allure to sin becomes disgusting, vile and repulsive in my mind.

It is the suffering part that is more difficult. I’m not a big fan and prefer comfort by far. However, Christ, the perfect and sinless Son of God had different thoughts about suffering. He used it to learn obedience.

Although he was a son, he learned obedience through what he suffered. And being made perfect, he became the source of eternal salvation to all who obey him.. (Hebrews 5:8–9)

Jesus, though fully divine, was also fully human. Though always without sin and therefore always obedient, Jesus acquired knowledge and experience by living as a human being. He learned firsthand what it cost to maintain obedience in the trials of life. As He “increased in wisdom and stature” (Luke 2:52), successive temptations were no doubt more difficult to deal with. As He obeyed His Father, He “learned” fully in His experience what He no doubt knew in His mind. It is His lifelong perfect obedience that is the source for my obedience, the ultimate “perfection” of my spiritual life.

But this is established through faith and obedience in suffering. I don’t like that part. Learning to think about it as Jesus thinks about it seems as challenging as trying to leap across the Grand Canyon or swim from here to Southeast Asia. Even the relatively mild sufferings of my homework assignments this past week were daunting, but I realize that they too are designed to teach me obedience.

This also is about looking at the Cross, at the suffering of Christ. Nothing that I experience will ever be like that. This is why Hebrews 12:3 tells me to “Consider Him who endured from sinners such hostility against Himself, so that you may not grow weary or fainthearted.”

Consider what Jesus suffered and stop feeling sorry for myself. Consider what Jesus suffered for me and let the comparison stop my whining and efforts to escape even mild discomforts. Let the Lord teach me obedience, even it means being mocked, attacked by vile temptations, stricken in my physical body.

As Luther writes, I need to look at Jesus and say, “Ah, why shouldn’t I also suffer a little since my Lord sweat blood in the garden because of anxiety and grief? I would be a lazy, disgraceful Christian if I wanted to lie in ease while my Lord was compelled to battle with a painful death.”

Since Christ suffered in his body, arm yourselves also with the same attitude — a challenge indeed.