“For our sake he made him to be sin who knew no sin, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.” (2 Corinthians 5:21)

We have a tendency to reason about what God would do and how he would act from our fallen sinful nature. We reason, since we love so-and-so, and we accept their behavior and love them just the way we are, since this is what our love does, surely that is what God’s love does, too. Nope. He loves us, but he doesn’t accept our sin–he wants us to surrender it to him, so he can in turn make us righteous like him.

On the other hand, sometimes in scripture, we see Jesus doing or saying things that we’ve been taught are never appropriate behavior. Instead of seeking better context (we might be misunderstanding due to a cultural lens) or reevaluating our doctrine, we keep our filters happy by saying, “well, he’s god.”

Sure he is fully God. But he’s also fully man and the second Adam, the paragon of virtue and completely sinlessness. The Lord Jesus played by the same rules he gave us. If he didn’t, he wouldn’t be the messiah, let alone God. That includes in terms of supernatural stunts, too. Scripture says he laid his own glory aside–the power he used on Earth is the power of the third member of the trinity, the holy spirit, who gifts His body likewise today.

It takes wisdom and the holy spirit to know what tact to take with people.  Don’t act in your own flesh and say, “Well, Jesus called so-an-so a fox.” It likely was not rash or without the leading of the Holy Spirit. He walked close with His Father and stayed in step with God. So we need to stop ourselves before we act rashly and ask: are we walking in the spirit or the flesh?

That goes for reaching out to help someone by offering them our ideas of love and kindness as well as with a smack down.  Only God knows what another person needs to hear at a given moment. So ask Him for the words to say.

Lord, forgive us for our rashness and our presumption. Open our eyes to understand you better today. Strengthen us and remind us gently, Lord, to come and focus upon you and walk humbly beside you. In every encounter we have today,  give us the words to speak so they will be exactly what the other person needs to hear at that moment. Deliver us from fear and sinful desires and a bitter spirit and any other thing that might prevent us from walking in step with you today. In Jesus’ name we pray, Lord, amen.