Object lessons - 5 minute devotionals to give - Pork Rinds and BBQ Potato Chips

           The other day in the office, Anna excitedly came into the office carrying 2 bags, one in each hand.

 She said," Dr. Guerra has always been giving me a hard time about how nasty pork rinds are and how bad they are for you. I just happened to buy some BBQ potato chips and look at the back -

pork rinds 90 calories      BBQ chips 150
pork rinds  6 g fat            BBQ chips 10
pork rinds   1 carb           BBQchips 15
pork rinds  0 g sugar        BBQ chips 2
pork rinds  8g protein       BBQ chips 2
pork rinds Vit.A 2%         BBQ chips 0%
I can't believe he gives me such a hard time!"
                 Well that night we went to Sam's and what would I see but

As only Sam's can do it, mega pork rinds! After my encounter with Anna I put this in my cart because pork rinds are good for you! Then it hit me - I had bought into the lie. When we want something to look good, we compare it to something that looks worse.We do this in our spiritual lives.Paul says in 2Cor 10:12,18 (NLT) 

But they are only comparing themselves with each other, using themselves as the standard of measurement. How ignorant!When people commend themselves, it doesn’t count for much. The important thing is for the Lord to commend them.

                  Non- Christians and Christians alike are guilty of this. I once shared with a guy and he said, "Jim, if I am going to hell it is going to be packed because I'm the best person I know." What was he doing - he was comparing his righteousness to those around him and he came out looking pretty good. The problem is that the standard we are compared to is not fellow sinful humans(BBQ chips), it is the perfection of God. God is perfect, Heaven is sinless, and we can't approach that glory in our sinful states. That is why "God made Him (Jesus) who had no sin to be sin for us, so that in Jesus we might become righteous." (2Cor5:21) He took all our sins and took them on Him on the cross(1Pet.2:24) because the "soul that sins - it shall die"(Ezek.18:20) , the penalty for sin is death(Rom. 6:23), and "without the shedding of blood there is no forgiveness of sins."(Heb.9:22)

                    Like I said, Christians aren't off the hook as to this wrong thinking. When Jesus met with his disciples and ate fish with them after His resurrection, he told Peter about Peter's great but painful future and Peter responded to this by pointing at John and saying,"what about him?" We often live a comfortable and safe, and non-sacrificial, not completely sold out nor obedient,non- radical Christian life because we compare ourselves to everyone else in the body and think we are doing really well. The problem is that God has a plan for my life that is different from everyone else's and I will answer to him for what I've done with what He has given me not what He has given someone else and how I did compared to them. (Matt 25:15-23)

                    So let's stop comparing ourselves to others and compare ourselves to Christ. Not only is He the ultimate standard and example, but He puts His very life inside of those who have received Him to help them grow into this impossible task of living up to perfection.

The RRReasons For Marriage

 ²¹ Submit to one another out of reverence for Christ.
 ²² Wives, submit yourselves to your own husbands as you do to the Lord. ²³ For the husband is the head of the wife as Christ is the head of the church, his body, of which he is the Savior. ²⁴ Now as the church submits to Christ, so also wives should submit to their husbands in everything.
 ²⁵ Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her ²⁶ to make her holy, cleansing her by the washing with water through the word, ²⁷ and to present her to himself as a radiant church, without stain or wrinkle or any other blemish, but holy and blameless. ²⁸ In this same way, husbands ought to love their wives as their own bodies. He who loves his wife loves himself. ²⁹ After all, no one ever hated their own body, but they feed and care for their body, just as Christ does the church— ³⁰ for we are members of his body. ³¹ “For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife, and the two will become one flesh.”³² This is a profound mystery—but I am talking about Christ and the church. ³³ However, each one of you also must love his wife as he loves himself, and the wife must respect her husband.  Eph. 5:21-33

     The longest passage on marriage in the Bible gives us some interesting insights on "why marriage?". Although this is in no way an exhaustive treatise on marriage, let me give you the 3 R's of marriage. The points may blend together a little but hopefully this will make sense.

      #1 Reflect Christ
                  This is our individual goal in life but marriage aids in this endeavor.

So all of us who have had that veil removed can see and reflect the glory of the Lord. And the Lord—who is the Spirit—makes us more and more like him as we are changed into his glorious image. 2Cor. 3:18

             Marriage is all about Christ. Look at the passage in Ephesians above. I've highlighted in yellow the parts that say it isn't about us - it's all about Christ. I've posted this before but I love this video; when everything was as it should be in the garden before sin,all the mirrors were aligned - creation, marriage, everything pointed to God and His glory. Like the video, when the mirrors were aligned, the glory in the room was great. However, man chose to turn his mirror toward himself, away from God, and the glory dissipated. Our lives should be all about turning that mirror back on God and the good news is our spouses can help.
          
                   ⁹ Two are better than one,
   because they have a good return for their labor:
¹⁰ If either of them falls down,
   one can help the other up.
But pity anyone who falls
   and has no one to help them up.
¹¹ Also, if two lie down together, they will keep warm.
   But how can one keep warm alone?
¹² Though one may be overpowered,
   two can defend themselves.
A cord of three strands is not quickly broken. Ecc. 4:9-12

                Our spouses can help us redirect that mirror. They are "helpmeets". They can give us the strength to do it by encouraging us, and they can point out the blind spots we don't see when we think we are focused on God. Not only that, but in a proper marriage, our mirrors should double in size, and if we raise a Godly family the glory can be blinding.

   #2. Refine us

        I would never have known the depth of my depravity had I not gotten married. Marriage exposed selfishness I didn't know existed. All marriage problems are sin problems and marriage is intended to drive us to Christ for grace. I've highlighted in green this part of the text in Ephesians. We as husbands are to present our wives someday to Christ as holy, pure, unadulterated. When we fight in marriage, and we all do, we need to use those as if a sculptor would be chiseling off what doesn't belong to reveal the person inside the stone that God intends to come out. Fights are painful, but seen in the right light should be useful to point out the "smudged" areas on our mirrors so we can clean them and better reflect Christ.

    #3. Represent Christ and the Church

     All through the Old Testament God uses people, instances, feasts, etc. to represent future fulfillments. Two examples are seen in 1Cor. 10:2-4 and John 3:14-15 to name a few. Marriage is no exception. From the beginning, God designed it to represent the future dispensation of Christ and His bride or body - the Church. I've highlighted in orange these passages in Ephesians. God is in effect telling a lost world, "You want to see how much Christ loves you, look at how much husbands love their wives.You want to see how He sacrificed for you, how much He treasures you, how He cares for you, look at marriage." Husbands, this is why we can't afford to have crummy marriages. This is why we can't desert our wives, divorce our wives, ignore our wives, or even live together without marrying because that is not what Christ does with the church. Not only are we misrepresenting Him to the world but we are also treating as unholy something God has esteemed as holy. As Uzzah profaned the Holy ark by touching it with his common hand or Moses defamed Christ our spiritual rock by striking it twice, so our marriages, treated as dirt offends a Holy, Righteous God.
       And wives, when you don't follow your husbands you are saying that the church deems Christ as being unworthy of following. When you commit adultry you are saying "Christ isn't satisfying , I need something else." If you don't respect him you are saying "Christ isn't worthy of the church's respect." If you live seperate lives - seperate friends, vacations, bank accounts - you are saying "Christ is a part of my life not my whole life."
       Isn't it time to start seeing marriage in a different light? It is serious business. As the disciples said to Jesus "If this is the situation...it's better not to marry." Without the Holy Spirit, maybe; but with the Holy Spirit, as it says in Genesis, "It's not good for a man to be alone". And God created woman and "it was good."

I Can't Get No - Satisfaction