Easter is fast approaching, and I am watching it coming at me like a speeding train. Can I just say I am not ready? I have strips of moulding all over my kitchen island and kitchen table, they are shrouded in a green tarp that spans the entire kitchen if stretched out. I have 30 boxes of flooring lined up in my living room because Brian needed to buy extra for if we ever put on an addition, this begs the question where will we store it until then? I have not a space of counter anywhere because everything has had to be shoved out of the way as we undergo more projects.
The question that begs to be asked is “why?” Why would we do this all over again? Why would I want to undergo this mess all over again?
Answer: Because we have to. To live in this mobile home the way it was, was simply not an option. The vinyl on the floor had cracked and lifted up to reveal the plywood underneath. It you walked without looking you would trip over a “lino curl” on the floor and then go down and most likely not too gracefully.
The flooring had to be changed – no question. The hope and promise of “we will replace it before we move in,” well, we can all see that that never happened. (no fault of anyone’s).
I have company coming this weekend and I will be ready…. “watch me,” I said to myself.
This phrase came to me today as I was talking with Brian… “watch me.”
We were talking about how God uses what appears to us, (to me) as backwards, sideways, upside-down ways of doing things.
I had said to Brian that I think God has a purpose for a particular person we were talking about that is bigger than what we think. This person is probably not who we would have picked for the job, but it is not up to us. I feel God tug at my heart and say, “Watch me.”
As an example, I said to Brian – who would ever have thought that the ministry God has given me (Jane), would be way bigger than I ever thought and I am sure there were plenty of “na sayers” to that plan. But God said, “Watch me.”
You see I was adopted, my birth mom tried to abort me and venomously did not want me. Who ever thought this unwanted, rejected little person would have a ministry that has impacted so many people? My birth parents and siblings showered me with love and over rode that “rejection” welcoming me into their family and then God sought me out and He adopted me into His Kingdom and then when I was feeling like what on earth am I here for, God said, “Watch me,” and His plan began to unfurl.
Brian and I started listing people that God has done this with, a fellow we know that cannot read well and how ironic that God’s phrase spoken over him was, “Son of My Word.” You see, God knew who He created and what his purpose was, no matter what that person thought or who said what about them, God said, “Watch me.” When this man quotes scripture, he has it down pat and when he speaks, you listen as it is spoken with authority.
Then there is a lady who feels all alone, rejected, she often has to isolate because of health, and some past hurts, God uses her as a prayer warrior intercessor extraordinaire. She is a strategic weapon in Gods’ Kingdom. This lady has prayed for more people that I ever will, she is a blessing to so many! She will stay up all night praying for someone if God directs her. Her name in the Kingdom of God, “Mother of the nations”. Most people will never know how much she has prayed for them. God took someone who felt abandoned and created a person who has poured herself out on behalf of the many, and impacted more lives than most people, all because God said, “Watch me."
How about a couple fisherman that Jesus ran into at the Sea of Galilee? Jesus saw them fishing and then told them they would be fishers of men, they had no idea what He meant, He said, “Watch me,” and they did. They too, helped change the world.
There was Saul who God turned into Paul in the Bible. He wrote more books in the New Testament than anyone else. But do you know what he did before that? His job was to go about finding Christians, beating them, throwing them in prison and killing them. That was his job description. God told Cornelius to go and talk to Paul, and Cornelius basically threw this job description back to God and implied that he did not want to die that day. God informed Cornelius that He had taken care of the problem Saul and to “Watch me” as God made a man after His own heart out of Paul. The world has not been the same since.
At this point in the story, most of us think, that the people listed here, watched God and then mimicked Him to get to be who they are today. That is absolutely what did not happen.
You cannot mimic a person and then “become” that person.
This was pointed out to me in Grade 12. I took an art class and one of our projects was to paint a copy of a “master” painter. We had several paintings by “master painters” that we could chose from. I picked a portrait of a rather portly little man with ruddy cheeks. It was a head shot and my goal was to copy the picture with the oil paints. I cannot remember the name of the original painting, nor can I show you my rendition of the picture, we threw it out. It looked absolutely nothing like the original and honestly was a very sad looking picture.
I imagine if I was a “good painter” I could have made a half decent replica, but no other person can create a painting exactly like its creator. It would be called a fake, or forgery, and be worth nothing of value. We, you and I, do not have the masters eyes, his mind and imagination, his touch with the paint, his wisdom and recollection of what he saw.
In other words, no person can mimic the master creator and become just like him.
Get where I am headed?
Yet so many of us read about Christ in the Bible and then attempt to be “just like Him.” We get hung up on the “I must do this, or I must not do that” and try to imitate the “master”. The Bible says that, “everything that was created was created by and for Jesus.” Colossians 1:16-17 which means that Jesus was the master creator.
The only way you can be “just like Jesus” is to let Jesus live inside of you and wouldn’t you know, He offers to do just that. He says that He will send us “the comforter, the counsellor, the Holy Spirit of God” and that He will “dwell inside of you.” John 14:15-17, 14:26
This Easter as we celebrate the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ we can approach it with the aspect of “Watch Me.”
Watch God as He sent His Son, Jesus, into the world knowing that He would be tortured and killed for crimes He did not commit.
Watch Jesus as He set His face like flint and walked to the cross to take upon Himself the crimes, the sins of the world, your sin and mine, so that we would not have to face the punishment for these crimes. He paid our way.
Watch Jesus as He kicked death to the curb by coming back to life, on Easter Sunday. He appeared in His resurrected body state to hundreds of people over a period of 40 days proclaiming the Kingdom of God to all. At the end of 40 days, Jesus told His disciples that He was going to leave them and be taken up to heaven, but He would not leave them alone, nor would He ever leave them alone, He would send His Holy Spirit to them to come and live inside of them. 1 Corinthians 15:4-8, John 16:13
Our new flooring in our mobile is ¾ laid and looks so beautiful. We put down new flooring, we did not attempt to copy the old flooring or to fix the old flooring, it needed to be made new.
Jesus does not expect us to make the old us into a version of Himself by fixing us, or by us “trying harder to copy Him”. Rather Jesus the Master Creator knows that in order to perfect the Masterpiece that He created (that would be you), He would have to give you His mind, His eyes, His heart, His Passions. He does not expect you to conjure it up on your own, He has given you everything you need to be like Him, because He has given you a piece of Himself with the Holy Spirit.
This Easter do not try to make yourself into something new, you cannot do it, instead, open wide the door of your heart and let God: Father, Son and Holy Spirit, walk across the threshold of your heart and allow them to do what only they can do; Perfect the Masterpiece (that would be you) that they created.
Happy Easter Everyone!