The Fully Coated Life
This past weekend my wife attended a birthday party for a friend. Each attendee was asked to bring a dish to share. My wife put together a lovely and delicious broccoli salad. She cut up broccoli and put it into a bowl. She then added diced red peppers, pieces of apple, and pecans. These ingredients were then covered with a slaw dressing.
Once mixed and tossed, no part of the salad’s ingredients was left untouched by the slaw dressing. The broccoli, peppers, apples, or pecans did not lose their own identity, but none were free of the slaw dressing either. The salad was fully coated with dressing.
When we become a follower of Jesus, He wants to have all of us. Jesus wants to be in, to touch, every part of our life. He wants to give us wisdom as we decide on a career or which college to attend. He wants to give us peace as we sit in the doctor’s office looking at the tumor in our lung. He wants to help us walk away from water cooler chatter that has turned to gossip and slander. Jesus wants us to seek Him with financial decisions. He wants control over our sex life. Yes, even that. To live life in such a fully coated way, Jesus needs to be in us, and with us, not just on Sundays (or whenever you attend worship service), but also Monday through Saturday. Jesus wants to be in everything we think, do, and say.
Psalm 139 is a wonderful 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. You hem me in behind and before, and you lay your hand upon me. Such knowledge is too wonderful for me, too lofty for me to attain” (vv. 1-6).
Continuing, we find this question in v.7, “Where can I go from your Spirit? Where can I flee from your presence?” We then get the answer in vv.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.”
When answering a question on what is the greatest commandment, Jesus, quoting from the Shema (see Deuteronomy 6), which is the centerpiece of morning and evening Jewish prayer services, answered this way – “And one of the scribes came up and heard them disputing with one another, and seeing that he answered them well, asked him, ‘Which commandment is the most important of all?’ Jesus answered, ‘The most important is, Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God, the Lord is one. And you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength’” (Mark 12:28-30).
We have a God who desires every part of us, who wants access to every nook and cranny of our whole being – heart, soul, mind, strength.
So, I ask you today, are you only allowing Jesus to touch certain places and keeping Him out of others, or inviting Him to be the dressing on your salad, fully coating you, touching every aspect of your life?
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