What does marriage have to do with discipleship? In Mark 10:1-12 Jesus is confronted once again by the Pharisees who are trying to get him killed. They ask him a question about the allowance of divorce in the law. Jesus responds with a question and then eventually gives an answer that they were not expecting. Jesus both exposes the hardness of their hearts and shows that they have completely missed God’s heart in marriage.
Jesus in his perfect life, substitutionary death, and glorious resurrection is God as refuge extended to humanity. When we repent and turn to him we are welcomed to experience God as refuge.
We as human beings foundationally orient ourselves to things we perceive are unchanging. But the only things that truly never change are the things rooted in the nature and character of God. In the Gospel of Jesus Christ God welcomes lost afflicted hopeless slaves of sin to cry out to him in repentance and promises that he will respond on the basis of his unchanging love. In Psalm 107 we see God in love deliver his people. We see God in love providentially determine all our days. and we see that it is that same unchanging love of God that moves us to live lives that reflect that divine love for our neighbors.
May we seek to enter into this sinful world to tell other image-bearers of the Word who already entered sin, bore sin, and finished sin, calling them to place their delight in Jesus the eternal Son of God who took on flesh.