Today, I read through Matthew chapters 1-10 and saw a consistent theme: Following Jesus is not comfortable, pretty, or easy; it was never meant to be. It was meant to glorify God, nothing more, nothing less.
In modern America, we have turned Christianity into a religious bumper sticker, a belief that people slap onto their car and say, “yeah, I’m a Christian.” Still, they do this understanding nothing about the relationship that Christianity entails. They claim Christ but don’t produce any of the fruits of his Bride. Most Americans assume that following Christ only requires confessing with their tongue that he is Lord; they do not understand that this is only the first step in the eternal process we have been gifted by living our lives in Christ.
This is going to be a series of posts walking through Matthew Chapters 1-10. In these posts I will process how these chapters have impacted me and, once I have made it through all of these passages, I will wrap them all up in a neat(er) package at the end. This will by no means be a comprehensive list of everything in these ten chapters, but rather, I will share with you what the Lord showed me through these passages individually.
Kicking off the first chapter of any of the Gospels, Matthew hits you dead on with names and names and names. It’s easy to skip past these first 17 verses and get right into the ‘interesting’ stuff with the birth of Jesus. However, there is a lot to gain when reading this genealogy. For instance, this list has three very interesting names: Tamar, Rahab, and Ruth. For some context, in the first-century world, women were never included in genealogies, much less women like these three. Tamar literally slept with her father-in-law, Judah; Rahab was a foreign prostitute, and Ruth was another foreigner. People like this were generally struck from the genealogies of important men in Jewish society because they were seen as unclean and unholy people, foreigners, and sinners. However, they were explicitly included in the genealogy of the Nazarene, Jesus Christ.
Jesus wanted everybody. He is happy to have sinners and prostitutes enveloped into his family. He is not hiding anything from us, instead, he is pleading with us to write our names down on this list, right below his.
I mean that the heir, as long as he is a child, is no different from a slave, though he is the owner of everything, but he is under guardians and managers until the date set by his father. In the same way we also, when we were children, were enslaved to the elementary principles of the world. But when the fullness of time had come, God sent forth his Son, born of woman, born under the law, to redeem those who were under the law, so that we might receive adoption as sons. And because you are sons, God has sent the Spirit of his Son into our hearts, crying, “Abba! Father!” So you are no longer a slave, but a son, and if a son, then an heir through God.
-Galatians 4:1-7
If Christ so desperately wants to adopt everyone into his family, why do we wait to tell everyone that our Father is waiting to accept them with open arms?
We serve a Father who loves us all so much he sent his only Son to die for us and now he has offered up, to anyone who would accept it, adoption into his family for the rest of eternity. If you lived in a family that loved like that, why would you not be telling everyone that they can be adopted too?
Christianity is not a religion that is aimed at ‘personal development’ or ‘better moral character,’ it isn’t even a religion. It is a personal relationship with a Father who loves you despite your open rebellion against him, a Father that doesn’t strike his children off of his genealogy because of their past, but includes them because of their worth in him.
This has nothing to do with us or what we deserve. It is for the glory of our Father and his Son. Sometimes, it is uncomfortable and hard to tell people how much our Father loves them and wants them to join his family. We get afraid of how people will react or how they will see us. My encouragement is this; every person you see has been written down on the invitation list to the Wedding Feast of the Lamb; you have been sent down as an ambassador of Christ (2 Corinthians 5:20) and tasked with handing out those invitations. Don’t hesitate to share. Everyone is invited but how can they come if they don’t know the way? Show them our Love, the Way, the Truth, and the Life.
Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us in Christ with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places, even as he chose us in him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and blameless before him. In love he predestined us for adoption to himself as sons through Jesus Christ, according to the purpose of his will, to the praise of his glorious grace, with which he has blessed us in the Beloved. In him we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of our trespasses, according to the riches of his grace, which he lavished upon us, in all wisdom and insight making known to us the mystery of his will, according to his purpose, which he set forth in Christ as a plan for the fullness of time, to unite all things in him, things in heaven and things on earth.
In him we have obtained an inheritance, having been predestined according to the purpose of him who works all things according to the counsel of his will, so that we who were the first to hope in Christ might be to the praise of his glory. In him you also, when you heard the word of truth, the gospel of your salvation, and believed in him, were sealed with the promised Holy Spirit, who is the guarantee of our inheritance until we acquire possession of it, to the praise of his glory.
-Ephesians 1:3-14.
