Adam or Jesus?

“…forever related to Adam and never to Christ”

That is a line at the end of the June 5th devotion in the Indeed Devotional booklet.

It is talking about the assumption of blood being thicker than water, you know how it goes: brothers at home always fighting, but at the school playground a brother will stick up and fight for his brother if another kid is beating him up – even though he was beating the snot out of him the day before.

When I read that line it literally made me stop and go “huh”. And I thought, yeah I want to be related to Jesus and have His legacy, not Adam’s who really had everything he needed and still wanted more. Still had the desire to disobey, to be greedy, to want to be god of his own life.

But I am so much like Adam. I am a wretched sinner… and I actually lead a pretty good life.

There are a lot of phrases going on around right now like “You are perfect just the way you are” You are perfect just the way God made you” “You are wonderful just in who you are”

While it is true that God fearfully and wonderfully made us… we are blood-related to Adam. We are sinners who want more, sinners who want to be god of our own life, sinners who want to pick and choose what we will follow about Jesus and His love and what we will ignore.

When I was a young teen – I watched my brother struggle with the world and it’s temptations. I watched as he partied and came home drunk, high or whatever and the pain it caused my parents. I have shared before that my brother has lived with schizophrenia for most of his life. Recently I was looking at his high school stuff and was amazed at the witness he was. He was very popular, athletic, musical, funny etc. I remember him like that, but I also remember the nights and weekends that ended up with a fight in the middle of the night as my parents dealt with his lifestyle.

He was a true prodigal – he knew the truth, but he choose the mud.

But in his year book and on the back of the senior pictures of different girls, they wrote: “Thank you for showing me who Jesus is” “Thank you for bringing me to your church and telling me about God”

I was like “Whaattt…??”

Adam or Jesus

He tried to live being related to both, just like I do today.

That line I read today struck me – if only every day I can look at what I am doing, thinking, acting on and see where it falls: Do I look like I am related to Adam or to Jesus? Is blood truly thicker than water? Or can we break free from our sinful nature and choose His holy nature?

It is a simple reminder with profound implications – if we live like we are blood-related to Jesus, the world will see it.

That is my prayer today for myself and for you who love Jesus.

Seek His ways, seek His Holiness

Pointing to His disciples, He said: “Here are my mother and  my brothers. For whoever does the will of my Father in heaven is my brother, sister and mother” (Jesus). Matthew 12:49-50