From peanut butter and jelly to salt and pepper, our favorite pairs have become the dynamic duos of daily life. Maybe you have your own as well! Coffee and creamer, vanilla and chocolate, or biscuits and gravy, among dozens of other combinations, might constitute your regular diet.
Some things go perfectly with other things. They are somehow linked together and just not the same apart from their counterpart.
Jesus also used images of pairs to help us understand His relationship with us. I love how He employs multiple illustrations to convey the same message: We need Him and cannot exist apart from Him.
“I am the light of the world,” He says. And elsewhere, “I am the good shepherd.” Similarly, “I am the true vine, and my Father is the vinedresser” (John 8:12, 10:11, 15:1)
He tells us who He is, but also who He is to us and who we are to Him.
“Whoever follows me will not walk in darkness, but will have the light of life.”
“The good shepherd lays down His life for the sheep … I know my own and my own know me.”
“Whoever abides in me and I in him, he it is that bears much fruit, for apart from me you can do nothing.”
Jesus is the Light of the World; we are His city set on a hill (Matthew 5:14). Jesus is the Good Shepherd; we are the sheep of His pasture (Psalm 100:3). Jesus is the True Vine; we are His branches (John 15:5).
The truth is, Jesus does not need us. He is all-powerful, all-knowing, and all-sufficient, lacking nothing and in need of nothing. The truth is, Jesus wants us. He invites us to abide in Him, to lack nothing, to be in need of nothing, because He is everything.
In response to this shocking truth, my heart ponders as David did in Psalm 8,
“What is man that you are mindful of him,
and the son of man that you care for him?”
Of all the things that God has made and all He is … He would call us carry out His will and enjoy abundant life in Him. What a sweet, life-changing, heart-warming mystery.
God’s Provision: Despite what it may feel or seem at times, God is not elusive. He is ready to be sought and found, open and accessible. “You will seek me and find me” He says in Jeremiah 29:13, “when you seek me with all your heart.”
Word of the Week: Interwoven. When we belong to God, we are bound to Him, hidden in Him, inextricably linked to His being. We become inseparable with His presence, even as Christ Himself is with God (John 17:21).
Abby
