Come and Remain

Luke 2:46

“After three days they found him in the temple, sitting among the teachers, listening to them and asking them questions.”

Jesus is amazing. He is fully God, perfect, blameless, spotless, the son and exact image of his father. Yet, he is fully man as well. Tempted just as we are, filled with emotions, and able to grow and learn, but never once did he sin or veer off the course. I wonder what life must have been like for Jesus. He of course knew all of the answers, and he had all the power of God within him, and yet he was able to grow. Jesus was able to learn and be taught, and he had the most coachable spirit of any man in all of history. This verse finds Jesus sitting in the temple courts, inquiring of the Rabbi’s, gaining knowledge, astounding them with the knowledge of the scriptures that he had, and he sat with them for three days straight. Jesus knew he was the perfect Son of God, the sacrifice for the sins of the world, but still, he hungered and longed to grow, and to discover more about his Father in Heaven. This story absolutely blows my mind! Jesus wanted to be taught? The Great Teacher, the all knowing, all powerful, Wonderful Counselor, brought himself so low, that he allowed men of the earth to teach him about his dad. This must have left Mary and Joseph dumbfounded too, because when they found Jesus in the temple, they asked him why he had done such a thing, and Jesus’ answer must have wrecked their hearts. He says, “Why were you looking for me? Did you not know that I must be in my Father’s house?” (verse 49). Why wouldn’t Jesus be anywhere else, but at the feet of the Lord? The heartbeat of everything he did, was to glorify his father, so why would he not talk about God, any chance he could get. It is a beautiful picture of the heart my Savior had. All he wanted was more of his Abba Father. All he wanted was to become like him in all of his ways. So If Jesus needed to be trained, and if he needed to increase in wisdom and favor with God, as verse 52 says, how much more so do I? I want to have this same longing and desire for growth, that the Son of the Most High God had. But what is getting in the way? Me. I get in the way of my own relationship with the Lord; my flesh fights my spirit to the death, and usually the flesh wins out. I don’t want to change, and I don’t really need to change because I am not that bad of a person. But I am that bad of a person, I am the chief of sinners, and if I really think this way, then I really do need to change, desperately. Change may hurt, teaching may be painful, but it is not done in vain. I have never been able to keep a plant alive, but that is simply because I did not care enough to water it, and cut away the dead pieces. God cares enough. He loves me so much so, that he wants to spend an eternity with me, but I must allow him to step into my life, take a hold of my heart, and begin to prune away the dead, and unfruitful parts of my life. God, bring me to this place of humility, and help me to be willing to learn and grow.  A day in your courts is better than a thousand elsewhere, may I come and remain. 

Application: There is an area in my life right now, that I am having a really hard time being teachable in, and I really have no idea what God is trying to teach me through this. Instead of wallowing in self-pity, I will come to the Lord’s feet and lay it down every day, asking that he would enlighten the eyes of my heart, to understand his ways.