Make your bed

Do you know that most people don’t make their beds? I know this because of their responses when I tell them, “Make your bed”.

You’re right that it’s an odd subject for biblical counseling, but I tell people this frequently. And yes, I usually get the same response...eyebrows raised or slight furrowing of the brow or narrowing of the eyes.

Make my bed?

(I can see them thinking it like it is printed on their foreheads)

With all that I am facing, I can barely get out of bed, let alone worry about making it...what’s that got to do with anything?

I hear you. Here’s why I say it. Much as we would like to most days, we do not live our lives out of sight. Try as we might to hide, or disguise, or withdraw, we are created by God, loved by God, and pursued by God, and SO, we live our entire lives in the real and active presence of God. It’s his universe after all. He doesn’t show up when we say “Dear God” or “Our father” or when we bow for grace before a meal. He’s with you in the dark of dawn before your feet hit the floor, with you when you fall the first or fiftieth time before breakfast, and he’s with you every other moment, when you cry and laugh and love and fail to love. Here’s how I know it.

Because he created you in his image and for his purpose. Because he came to earth to live and die for the sake of making a way to be with you forever. Because he is the omnipresent Spirit of the Church and because he will not relent in his personal and loving mission until all the saints are gathered in. Because he's a promise-keeper and his most oft-repeated promise is, "I am with you".

So, when you wake and stare anxiously at the clock or your phone or the ceiling, he’s there. When your palms begin to sweat, when your guts turn over, and when your bed is suddenly cold as you consider what awaits you, he’s there. When you decide to abandon yourself to the day’s insanity OR instead consider what might really happen if you just slid down under your blanket for another hour or 12, he is really there.

And so...As a first, intentional, faithful act of the day, make your bed. As an act of worshiping the God who is there, make your bed. As a humble receiving of the grace that God has given you for this particular day, make your bed. As a faithful stewarding of what God has given you (bed, home, strength, health, work, family, etc), make your bed.

Make your bed as an acknowledgment that though no one else will lay eyes on your bed, God sees you, and you live in the reality of God’s active presence and in the reality of his very real love, grace, and purpose which is toward you and for you FOREVER in the person of Jesus Christ.

Because all this (and far more) is TRUE, make your bed.

And have a good cup of coffee for pete’s sake. Life’s too short for bad coffee. But that's another post.

Don't worry, you're not special

I love you but there is only ONE cross. You are really not that special.

Jesus Christ didn’t suffer and die on the one, then climb down, then get up and die on another cross especially for you. And this is GOOD NEWS!

The one cross was entirely NECESSARY and entirely SUFFICIENT.

Necessary because your sin was always, and has always been, about God. Without the cross, you are an absolute offense to the one holy God of all, undeserving of the very shadow of his presence. You were doomed, and no number of good deeds, no amount of logic and learning, and no variety of self-hate or self-love will substitute for, or add to, or take away from what the one cross did. What it did, it did for all. What it did, it did for all time. That means you...and that thing you did. Yes, even that. Even the first, fleeting thought of it was offensive to God, separating you from him before you lifted a finger or spoke the first word. The cross is necessary because even if you think you are OK, you are not. Sin and death are the real marks of a fallen world and separateness from God. Born into this fallen world, we are ALL indelibly stained, irrevocably lost, terminally ill, and dead on arrival BUT for the ONE CROSS of Christ.

Sufficient is the one cross because on it suffered and died the ONLY begotten Son of God. God himself, he is the Son of Man prophesied throughout scripture hundreds of years before he entered time and laid aside his glory to unite with our flesh. He took on our lives that we might take on his LIFE. Sufficiently, he became the curse, became our sin and shame, became all that God rightly hates, and then meekly and willingly, yielded to God’s just wrath. Sufficiently, he faced EVERY temptation COMMON to man. Your struggles are real and I am sorry for your pain, but take heart, they are not special. Many have faced them or the bible would not call them common. And Jesus faced them, then died to satisfy the Father’s righteous judgment on them and all sin, all shame, all distortions, and all damages that have been done to his world and his people.

Sufficiently, the ONE Messiah died on the ONE cross ONCE and FOR ALL. All people, all sin, for all of time. There was no need of a second.

So, take heart, you are not special. Nothing more is required. It is finished. He has done it. Rest, O weary heart, and rejoice in the only one worthy of all praise. Rejoice that, because of the cross, and in the twinkling of an eye, you will soon be finally free.