African Chiliads and Jesus Christ

Yesterday Becky and I decided it was time for Rachel to get a fish tank. This seemed simple enough...buy a cheap fish tank + purchase fish food + get a gold fish = most awesome mom and dad ever. The first two parts of the equation went easy enough. Now when it came time to pick out the fish I held Rachel up to the top row of fish tanks at Wal-Mart to chose her new fish. See the top row is where all the cheap fish are. I asked if she liked any fish in the first tank…it was full of lots of orange, red, and black fish. Rachel answered "NO!" We moved to the next tank full of small stripped fish. "What about these Rachie?" "NO!" Onto a third tank filled with tiny neon blue fish. All I received was a third and definitive "NO!"

I put Rachel down and said "well don't you want any fish?" She looked at a tank on the bottom rack and said "I want this fish here daddy." I looked down and saw for the first time in my life an African Chiliad. This is a medium sized stripped fish. The thing that caught me was the fact it is $6.00! All I knew now is that my aquarium budget for Rachel was ballooning! When the kid who worked in the fish department at Wal-Mart came over and we asked him about African Chiliads he told us they were AGGRESSIVE FISH! Essentially that means you can't put any other fish in there with it!

With this information I went back to Rachel and told her she could have two fish from the top row or one fish from the bottom row! After all who wants one fish when they can have two? Well Rachel does…she decided to have me purchase the African Chiliad from the bottom row! She then proceeded to name him "Puckiley the Fish," which is a name of unknown origin! With our $6 buck, aggressive fish in hand we went to buy some fish flakes (at last something cheap), but NO the Chiliad's have their own special fish pellets at the bargain basement price of $10 a bottle!

I sound frustrated, cheap…maybe both to you. However that all washed away when walking up the steps to the house Rachel looked at the bag and said "Welcome home Puckiley!" It was so neat to see her take ownership of her new pet, Puckiley the fish.

In the aquarium we call life something similar has happened to us. God in the form of man came and chose us! Rather than doing something less, God sent Jesus wrapped in human flesh. Essentially he looked for the most beautiful, expensive, incredible expression…similar to Rachel's African Chiliad.

Christ then purchased us with his blood! Sealed us with His spirit! Then the most incredible thing…he gave us a new name! We are not named "Puckiley the Fish," but rather Child of God, redeemed, saint, and Christian! Then to top it off God gave us His word to feed upon! We defiantly do not live on bread alone (or at all) but on the precious Word of God.

Paul writes in Ephesians 2 (my favorite chapter of the New Testament), "But God, being rich in mercy, because of the great love with which he loved us, even when we were dead in our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ – BY GRACE YOU HAVE BEEN SAVED – and raised us up with him and seated us with him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus, so that in the coming ages the might show the immeasurable riches of his grace and kindness toward us in Christ Jesus. For by grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not your own doing; it is a gift of God, not a result of works, so that no one may boast. For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand, that we should walk in them."

There was nothing that fish did to in the aquarium to make Rachel choose it. Rather in her own 3 and a half year old mercy chose that fish to be her own. She then sealed it in a bag, got it food, and gave it a new name!

Praise God for the greatest act of mercy that he chose us, saved us, sealed us, named us, and now feeds us! Go swim in the waters of life as a fish chosen and named by God!