day no. 15,912: blood-education levels

In reading Rebekah Merkle's Eve in Exile, I came across the following quote...

A little learning is a dang’rous thing;

Drink deep, or taste not the Pierian spring:

There shallow draughts intoxicate the brain,

And drinking largely sobers us again.

-- Alexander Pope, An Essay on Criticism

In this respect, alcohol has an inverse relationship to education. A little alcohol keeps one sober whereas too much intoxicates, but too little education intoxicates whereas more will sober you up. To be drunk on education is to merely sip at it. To be sober is to polish off the bottle. It is only safe to operate a household with a blood-education level of 1.00 or more whereas a meager 0.02 level is too be black out drunk. In other words, a little wisdom makes things blurry, but more will clear them up.

day no. 14,235: crown the Head and the whole body shares the honour

"Crown the Head and the whole body shares the honour"  - Charles Haddon Spurgeon

1 Corinthians 11:3
But I want you to understand that the head of every man is Christ, the head of a wife is her husband, and the head of Christ is God.

Ephesians 5:23
For the husband is the head of the wife even as Christ is the head of the church, His body, and is Himself its Savior.

When Jesus is honored, we are honored if we are in Him. When the Head receives its crown, the hands do not complain. Crowns are for heads. The hands are blessed when the head carries the weight of the crown for the rest of the body. The hands are honored as part of the body whose Head is crowned.

day no. 12,954: garden variety‏

I was thinking about Genesis 3 the other day.

 

When Eve sinned, God came looking for Adam.

Genesis 3:9

So the Lord God called out to the man and said to him, “Where are you?”

 

This doesn’t seem fair.

Eve started it.

But Adam was responsible.

 

Whether or not he wanted to be in charge, he was.

 

Maybe he liked being in charge when it meant naming stuff whatever he desired, but when being in charge meant giving an account for the state of his garden and the people therein, he blame-shifted.

 

Adam had done wrong. He had failed to protect the garden. He had failed to defend the truth. He had listened to the voice of his wife rather than the voice of God.

 

Adam had real sin to account for and instead of confessing, he attempted to justify himself and his actions based on the circumstances surrounding his sin. His end game was this: it’s not really my fault.

 

The first Adam was from the dust and to the dust that Adam returned. He is who we are.

 

Jesus was from the Adam from Heaven. Jesus never sinned. He did nothing wrong. He is who we ought to be.

 

And yet He takes full responsibility for His people and says, “Punish Me.”

 

He doesn’t blame-shift. In His case, it wouldn’t even be blame-shifting. There was no hammer coming down on Jesus. He didn’t deserve any pain, suffering, maltreatment or death.

 

And yet He took upon Himself intentionally, on purpose the pain, suffering, maltreatment and death of the cross.

 

Jesus reversed the curse by being the Adam we all need because of the Adam in us that has fallen short.

 

Jesus took responsibility for us.

He did what Adam was too lazy or afraid to do.

He owned our sin.

 

2 Corinthians 5:21

 

He made the One who did not know sin to be sin for us, so that we might become the righteousness of God in Him.

 

Not because He had to, but because He wanted to.

Not out of duty, but out of devotion to the Father.

Not out of compulsion, but out of love.

 

Praise God!