Week 7—Tuesday John 3:16-19
Week 7—TUESDAY
EVERYTHING MADE TO WORK IN CHRIST’S WAY
We saw yesterday some of the passages in the New Testament which tell us in definite terms that everything has been made “by Christ” and “for Christ.” That last phrase “for Christ” is important. It is possible to imagine that Christ would make a universe for purposes other than for himself—a tentative universe to be made and to be destroyed and replaced by a better one. But this passage is definite in authorship and purpose—the universe is made “by Christ” and “for Christ.”
If these passages mean anything, they mean that everything is made to work in its inner structure in Christ’s way. If it works in his way, it fulfills the purpose of its creation—it works harmoniously, creatively, and happily. Its very being and the purpose of its being is fulfilled. If it works some other way, it works its own ruin, not by decree from without, but intrinsically; it is ruined by violating the law of its own nature. It is self-destroyed.
I am convinced that we are predestined by the very structure of our beings to be Christian. Note I say “to be Christian,” not “to be Christians,” for many who are “Christians” in the conventional sense are living against the laws of their being and are thereby being destroyed, maybe slowly, but surely. I believe that predestination is written not in the inscrutable will of God, as was once proclaimed, but written in our nerves, our blood, our tissues, our organs, our makeup. It is not merely written in the texts of Scripture, but into the texture of our beings. We can live against that destiny if we desire, for we are free, but if we do we get hurt—automatically. When Christ made you and me and the universe, he stamped within us a Way—a Way to live. His Way. And if we live according to that Way, we live; if we live some other way, we perish.
O Father of my being, you have wrought into me your ways. Help me to make your ways my ways. Then my ways will become the Way. If I am on your Way, I am a train on the track running harmoniously and smoothly; but off your Way, I bump along on the ties. Save me. Amen.
AFFIRMATION FOR THE DAY: I will decide my destiny according to his predestiny.