February 7 I Tuesday

Leviticus 1-3

Matthew 24:1-28

“Now there was a Pharisee, a man named Nicodemus who was a member of the Jewish ruling council. He came to Jesus at night…”    —John 3:1-2

There once was a Pharisee who may have heard or seen a young man who came to Jerusalem from Nazareth. There was something about Him that had power, something about Him that was different. This Pharisee, named Nicodemus, went out one night, presuming no one would know, and went to knock on the door of this young man, who happened to be Jesus. Nicodemus said, “Rabbi, we know that You are a teacher who has come from God. For no one could perform the signs You are doing if God were not with him” (John 3:2).

       From Nicodemus’s statement, he was not saying to Jesus, “You are God”—not in a thousand years would a Pharisee ever think that. Rather, Nicodemus was acknowledging that before him was a man in whom God was at work. Nicodemus was well-versed in the Old Testament Scripture, knowing that Abraham, Joshua, Rahab, Ruth, David, Elijah and Esther were people in whom God had been at work. What Nicodemus saw in Jesus was a Man indwelt by the life of God, but what he did not know was that this was what God intended humanity to be; it was the fall that separated us from the life of God. 

       Imagine a glove, which is made in the image of a hand—it has four fingers, a thumb, a palm and a wrist. When the glove was manufactured, it was intended to fit a human hand. However, without a human hand inhabiting it, the glove is lifeless. We could say to the glove, “Pick up the glass” and absolutely nothing is going to happen. Though the glove is made in the image of the hand, the ability for it to function as a glove comes only if we put a hand in the glove and pick up the glass of water. Like a hand in the glove, Nicodemus was realizing that no one can do what Jesus is doing unless God is with Him.

       Jesus told Nicodemus, “Very truly I tell you, no one can see the kingdom of God unless they are born again” (John 3:3). We can reinterpret Jesus as saying, “Nicodemus, this will never make sense to you until you too have become the recipient of a new life and have been born again, because this life, which you have seen in Me, is a life that can be in you.”

       We are all like gloves lying lifelessly until a hand—the life of Jesus Christ—comes inside of us. May we recognize that the Christian life is only lived by the life of Jesus Christ in us.

Prayer: Dear Jesus, I cannot live the Christian life without You. Thank You for coming to live Your life in me. Praise You!