I just completed repairing a table for someone. It was a good time because I like doing things like that. It was a fairly easy project. I just had to drill out the old dowels, sand off the old glue, cut new dowels, re-glue the seams, and clamp it all together. All in all, it was an uneventful project except for what I felt like God was saying to me…

One of the reasons I like doing little projects like this is because I often feel God speak to me during them. Not in an audible way but in my soul. Some of my biggest revelations about God and myself have come from one project or another. For some reason, God chooses to speak to me through my physical actions. Maybe it’s because I am a bit thick in the head and when I am working on something I am a little freer to hear from Him.

As I was sanding off the old glue I was getting pelted with hot glue bits because apparently a Dremel will melt glue and shoot it at you. This is a good tip for the future but as I was being assaulted with hot glue buckshot I understood something about God and myself on a deeper level. In going to the cross Christ took my sin and that sin was costly, and it hurt. It was brutal, and while my hot glue barrage does not compare but it did make me think. He took that pain because I needed that sin removed. In order for me to have the ability to be reconnected, or reconciled, in a proper and fitting way like the table legs the old had to be stripped away and it did not come without a cost. Now I know this because 1 Peter 1:18-19 among other verses tells me this but it is one thing to know it and another to understand it. We always have to remember that it was for our benefit that Christ died. He was perfectly fine before the incarnation, but He desired us. He desired to reconcile us to the Father. It was that desire and the will to carry it out that gives us life. Jesus desired us so much it moved Him to participate in humanity and literally put some skin in the game.

Now the second thing is that it hurts me too. If the wood could speak (and had feelings) it would tell me that this burns and it is painful. It would probably ask me to stop because this process is uncomfortable, however, because I know what it takes to reconnect the legs in a permanent way I persist. It might be painful for a moment, but that moment will pass, and it will be stronger than it ever was before but first, it must undergo destruction of the old. We are being conformed to the image of the Son and don’t think for a second that is not a painful process. Old things from you are being stripped away and torn off. It is painful and that is OK. God is trying to make you fit where you belong. He is trying to make you fulfill your purpose, but you have so much junk on you that cannot stay that way. Sure, He could patch you up and send you along, but He would rather do things the right way. God prefers to sanctify us. Yes, there is an instant part of sanctification but there is also this ongoing process of maturing and setting apart (sanctification).

I know the Bible says that our righteousness is like filthy rags and I agree but God still created you and built you for a purpose. You are handcrafted and on your own, you cannot do it, but He can. You cannot clean yourself up and make yourself fit with Him. He needs to remove all that sin and selfishness, so you fit like you should. Both Christ and we have skin in this process. That is not something that can be understated.

I am so glad that Christ took my sin and I am so sorry that I still fall short and sin. But I know that He has not given up on me. I know He is working to accomplish His good pleasure in me. I know that He has work for me to do that He has predestined for me to do. I know I am not worthy of it and I don’t even know what it is, but I trust Him. Let’s let Him clean us up. Let’s let Him rebuild us into what we were made to be. Yes, it is painful but never forget it hurt Him first.

Just a thought,

Mike