Fully Coated
The Fourth of July holiday is less than two weeks away. For many, that is the quasi midpoint of summer, bookended by the Memorial Day and Labor Day holidays. In addition to fireworks, July 4th is a day for cookouts and picnics, celebrating the holiday with family or friends. You might be one of those, maybe traveling to a friend’s beach house or simply walking down the street to a neighborhood gathering.
The host of the picnic has asked each guest to bring a dish to share. Amid greasy burgers, hot dogs, potato salad, deviled eggs, baked beans, and potato chips, you decide to add a healthy option to the food table. Spinach and strawberry salad. You put the spinach in a bowl and add in crumbled feta cheese, sliced fresh strawberries, onions, and walnuts. You then mix some white wine vinegar, olive oil, chopped fresh basil leaves, sugar, salt and pepper, pouring the mixture into a plastic salad dressing shaker.
Right before the meal you pour the vinaigrette dressing over the salad, tossing it all together. Once mixed and tossed into the salad, no part of the salad is untouched by the dressing. It fully coats all the ingredients – the spinach leaves, strawberries, onions, and the walnuts. Now I want you to keep that image of fully coated in mind.
If you are a follower of Jesus, He wants to be in, to touch, every part of your life. Through the power of the Holy Spirit, Jesus desires to fully coat your life. He wants to give you wisdom as you decide on a career or which college to attend. He wants to give you peace as you sit in the doctor’s office looking at the tumor in your lung. He wants to help you walk away from the water cooler chatter that has turned to gossip and slander. In order to live life the way Jesus requires, He needs to be in us, and with us, not just on Sundays, but also Monday through Saturday. Jesus wants to be in, to fully coat, everything you do and say.
Psalm 139 is a great place to see this intensely intimate relationship we have with Jesus. The psalm begins with these words, “You have searched me, LORD, and you know me. You know when I sit and when I rise; you perceive my thoughts from afar. You discern my going out and my lying down; you are familiar with all my ways. Before a word is on my tongue you, LORD, know it completely.” (vv. 1-4)
A few verses later we see this question, “Where can I go from your Spirit? Where can I flee from your presence?” We then get the answer in verses 8-10, “If I go up to the heavens, you are there; if I make my bed in the depths, you are there. If I rise on the wings of the dawn, if I settle on the far side of the sea, even there your hand with guide me, your right hand will hold me fast.”
So, I ask you today, are you only allowing Jesus to touch certain places and keeping Him out of others, or are inviting Him to be the “dressing on your salad;” fully coating and touching every aspect of your life?
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