Picturesque language of discipleship.

I was drawn to these words this week as I read. The picturesque language of discipleship. Picturesque...what is seen. Language....words. Discipleship...learners. What is the picturesque language of discipleship? Seeing Jesus on the cross. Jesus, the Word, teaches us dying on the cross as the path to real life. Thank God it's over for Him. He did it. It is finished He said. And now as we journey through the season of Lent with an eye towards the cross in Holy Week, we remember the cross of Jesus as the picturesque language of discipleship.

It is so very, very hard to picture Jesus there on the cross, having become my sin, our sin. The language isn't that He died for my sin. He died being my sin. And yours. And I want to look away. I can't bear that picture. But simultaneous, I'm drawn to gaze at that bloody picture. I'm actually desperate to gaze at it because there is power and glory and healing beyond any description of human power I can begin to describe. Eternally detonating power that obliterates death and hell and evil and all of that residing in my very heart. Though my sin be as scarlet, He is washing me whiter than snow.

This is what Peter is doing in his letter, the second chapter, verses 21-25. There is no way that I can add any of my words to embellish this picturesque language of discipleship. Soak in this declaration.

"To this you were called, because Christ suffered for you, leaving you an example, that you should follow in His steps.

'He committed no sin, and no deceit was found in His mouth.' When they hurled their insults at Him, He did not retaliate; when He suffered, He made no threats. Instead, He continued entrusting Himself to Him who judges justly. “He himself bore our sins” in His body on the cross, so that we might die to sins and live for righteousness; “by His wounds you have been healed.” For “you were like sheep going astray,” but now you have returned to the Shepherd and Overseer of your souls."

These words are like lines on paper helping a child to learn to write. I remember that tan paper with big wide lines from grade school as I was learning to write my cursive "L". This is the declaration of the picturesque language of discipleship. God is teaching us about how powerful His life blood is, in and for us. He is showing us.

So what am I learning as I SEE the WORD on the cross. Among more than I'm sure that I'm even aware of, there is this. He continued entrusting Himself to Him who judges justly. What a glorious declaration! He kept entrusting Himself to His Father, His Abba, His Papa. And these are not just cheap, fluffy words on some obscure social media platform. His "kept entrusting" is dripping in blood. This is our example. Keep entrusting yourself to Papa. But how can we do it? Please tell me how!

We can't. That's what my pastor Louis said on Sunday. I can't do this, but the boundless Spirit of God can ignite this "keep entrusting" in me!

May it be so.

The picturesque language of discipleship.

Sick souls revived by the wounds of Jesus.

We're the sick ones. So bask in it.

We're the ones that need this blood.

There's more.