Just Add Water

Do not think that I have come to abolish the Law or the Prophets; I have not come to abolish them but to fulfill them. For truly, I say to you, until heaven and earth pass away, not an iota, not a dot, will pass from the Law until all is accomplished. Therefore whoever relaxes one of the least of these commandments and teaches others to do the same will be called least in the kingdom of heaven, but whoever does them and teaches them will be called great in the kingdom of heaven. For I tell you, unless your righteousness exceeds that of the scribes and Pharisees, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven.
(Matthew 5:17-20)

I'm not one to do a lot of cooking.  If it's going to happen, it will probably take place during breakfast since the preparation for that meal tends to take the least time and the fewest brains...or maybe I just do breakfast so that it plays out that way.  Take pancakes for example.  I know you can make them from scratch, but I'm more of a "just add water" kind of a guy.  That's pretty cool.  Somehow everything that pancakes are supposed to have in them (maybe eggs, flour, oil, milk...vitamin B12?) is already in that dry whitish stuff.  The needful materials are there and you wouldn't want to pull any of them out because it was put together to have the water added.  Without it, you're not going to have pancakes.

It's always a little awkward to transition from breakfast foods to the Savior and King of the world but here goes.  Jesus tells us that the law and prophets--all the Old Testament parts of the Bible--are fulfilled or wrapped up in Him.  It's as if everything that was put down on paper was made for Him to step in and give it substance and meaning.  He made it clear that trying to get rid of or pull out any little bit of it was strictly prohibited because in the end it shows us who He is, why He's essential, and just how far we were from being able to do exactly what had to be accomplished for us to have any hope at all.

Now granted, we need to be careful as we think through what exactly Jesus means when He says we're not to relax one iota or dot from the law.  Are we supposed to impose the dietary rules again?  Should we start killing animals at the alter once more?  No, that's what the Pharisees did (and way more!), and Jesus says we've got to be better than them.  What we have to do is to see Jesus in the iota's and the dots, filling them out in the way that water does to pancake mix.  Pulling Jesus (or the water) out of things isn't the way to obey the laws.  Jesus came to be a game-changer, giving meaning and substance, and making perfectly useful the perfect instructions that were written--instructions that were not going to give us what we needed UNTIL He came and gave it the shape and the finalization that was necessary.

Really, this passage makes one of the biggest cases we have for the necessary imputation of Christ's righteousness (I know, now I've gone from pancakes to imputation...bear with me).  Jesus says that we've got to be better than the really, really, tediously "good" Pharisees who had down exceedingly well the fine points of the law stuff.  See, what Jesus is saying here and makes even clearer elsewhere is that if we don't have Him (and His perfection) in us, we don't have what we need.  If God doesn't look at us and see righteous Jesus, we're toast, because what the religious people of the day spent gobs of energy on wasn't enough.  If you don't know Jesus (or have been ignoring His awesomeness lately), just call out in faith, lay down your self-strengthened striving, and watch Him fill out your life and change you like water in pancake mix.

Yes, these are among the mighty words that Jesus says we're wise to build the "houses" of our lives upon.  Make Him your motivation for life today and watch how He gives new meaning and zest to the mix.