Get To Jesus

I remember in grade school being tricked into taking a test that was really about nothing. The object was to see if we were paying attention and if we could follow directions. The point was that we didn’t really have to take the test at all if we read the first line or two, carefully. The instructions cryptically guided us to a list of minimal requirements most of us believed were too good to be true. Sign your name, answer question 1 and 50 and turn in your paper. “No way that could be the test” we reasoned and we went ahead to read the other subterfuge that pushed us toward spending the next hour or more, engaged in earning a grade we had no need for. The deeper we got into the test, the more difficult and ridiculous it became. Even when we saw other people completing the test and turning it in, we resisted the urge to follow. We either lacked the confidence that we were as smart as they were or we lacked the humility to examine ourselves to see if maybe we could have been wrong about the instructions.
And such is the Christian life! Sometimes the answer is not complicated. Sometimes the signs are all around and we keep going our way. The further we get away from our original instructions, the more difficult it seems to get back. Sometimes it will require courage to go in a different direction. If we earn it, the reward ends right there. We must humble ourselves in order to conform to a learning posture. Everything God has for us is too good but it is true. Jesus is the bridge over the other 48 questions we never have to answer. The test would be over if we could skip over the rhetoric, the accusations, the philosophies, the guilt, the shame, the excuses and the millions of obstacles, and get to Jesus!

Now turn in your paper!

“And behold, a woman, which was diseased with an issue of blood twelve years, came behind Him, and touched the hem of His garment: For she said within herself, If I may but touch His garment, I shall be whole.” Matthew 9:21 (KJV)