- Psalm 32.1-2 NIV
Blessed is he whose transgressions are forgiven, whose sins are covered. 2 Blessed is the man whose sin the LORD does not count against him and in whose spirit is no deceit.
Sometimes as I write a post the best thoughts just kind of squirt out at the end. That happened yesterday with this sentence: “What a friend is the friend of Jesus.”
It’s like “now that’s a tomato!”
After eating tomatoes wrapped in plastic all winter, you are beginning to believe that is how tomatoes taste, then you go out to the garden (or even better your neighbor brings a sack over) and twist your first tomato off the vine and rub the dirt off …
And take a bite and as you dribble down the front of your t-shirt you remember … “Now that’s a tomato!”
And that is what it is like with friends or associates, even Christians. I’d rather have the ones that have had some dirt rubbed off them. The ones that have been rolled around in the grace and mercy of God.
The ones that have kept themselves so clean in plastic wrap, nyah, not so much.
We all have the dirt; some deal with it before Jesus, some don’t.
I’m not saying we intentionally sin so that grace increases. (Hmmm … where have I heard that?) But it does when we do. God says so. (Romans 5.20-21)
I am saying that if we live honestly before God and the people around us stuff happens. Our feet get dirty on the path; sometimes more than that. But the “real tomato” knows where grace is; the real tomato knows in what she is planted – the righteousness and goodness and mercy and grace and love of God. All bought and paid for by one man, his name being Jesus.
- But where sin increased, grace increased all the more … (Romans 5.20 NIV).
And that is the soil where the friend of the friend of Jesus grows. When you are around the person in the body or in spirit via email or telephone … iPad 🙂
You taste God.
- Psalm 34:8 (NIV)
Taste and see that the LORD is good; blessed is the man who takes refuge in him.
And the ones in his garden taste awfully good also. Because in that holy place where God does his transforming work it is all about his righteousness being grown into us, absorbed through the precious soil of our salvation, cultivated by the Holy Spirit of God.
- “the fruit of righteousness that comes through Jesus Christ—to the glory and praise of God” (Philippians 1.11).
Now that’s a tomato!
What a friend is the friend of Jesus!
