2002-01-01
Dear Faithful Ones,
As you know, I have written a series of devotions in the past about love. However, I never cease to be amazed at how the Lord can bring you to revisit a subject, so He can teach you even more about it than you already know. He does this today in leading me to write about the love Christ has for us as a demonstration of how we can become one with His divine nature. All of this is to teach us how we can be good, responsible, and active participants in the Covenant of Grace, which God has so lovingly commanded us to do. If it seems strange that the words “love” and “command” can be in the same sentence, then we don’t know our one and only Supreme God. What a great Presence He is in our lives!
Let’s look at LK 23: 34, one of the most amazing demonstrations of love in the Scriptures. It is Christ’s first utterance on the cross. “Forgive them, Father, for they know not what they do.” I have an article that I read written by William D. Edwards, MD, Wesley J. Gabel, Mdiv, and Floyd E. Hosmer, MS, AMI for JAMA, March 21, 1986, vol. 255, no. 11 titled “On The Physical Death of Jesus Christ.” While this is by no means a pleasant article to read, it is an important one. That is because it describes in detail what actually happens to a person physically when he is crucified. There are two important insights that come of reading this. One is the enormous capability that mankind has for doing evil when no faith is present and repentance has not taken place. The other is the extraordinary (supernatural) beauty of Christ’s profound love for mankind. I know that I often return to Romans for illumination and don’t apologize for that. RO 6: 6, “And we know that our old being has been put to death with Christ on His cross, in order that the power of the sinful self might be destroyed, so that we should no longer be the slaves of sin.” From a physical point of view, the article mentioned above gives us a deeper understanding of the pain that Christ endured for us. The fact that He did this for people who are His enemies at the time makes His sacrifice even more startling. How many of us would give our lives in such a horrendous way for people who hate us? That helps us to understand a little better the depth of God’s love for us in sacrificing His Son. RO 5: 10-11, “We were God’s enemies, but He made us His friends through the death of His Son. Now that we are God’s friends, how much more will we be saved by Christ’s life! But that is not all, we rejoice because of what God has done through our Lord Jesus Christ, Who has now made us God’s friends.”
We have some limitations in our ability to perceive that God doesn’t have. That is why He inspired Isaiah to write this message in IS 55: 8-9. “’My thoughts,’ says the Lord, ‘are not like yours, and My way are different from yours. As high as the heavens are above the earth, so high are My ways and thoughts above yours.’” That means we must trust God. Since Christ the second person of God, He is imbued with the same omniscience that the Father has with one exception. That shows up in MT 24: 36. “No one knows, however, when that day and hour [referring to the coming of the Son of Man] will come-neither the angels in heaven nor the Son; the Father alone knows.” You might wonder why mention this when writing about Christ’s example of love. However, we must realize that the decision for Christ to endure the suffering that He did, the reasons for doing this, and the overall plan that God has for mankind was no accident. There was a pre-creation council in heaven to reveal just how God set His plan in place. You can read about that in AC 2: 23, AC 4: 27-28, COL 1: 15-20, JN 1: 29-30, 1 COR 2: 7, and 1 PET 1: 20-21, and I hope you will do that.
We must ask ourselves the question, would I be willing to give up my life for a friend, much less for an enemy? That’s a tough question, but one that it is useful to ask. We know that our Lord has asked us to love our enemies. That is why He asked us to pray for those who persecute us in MT 7: 44. He then goes on to say, “so you can be sons of your Father in heaven” in MT 7: 45. That is the example that He set for us. Can you imagine how He felt when He went back to his own village, Nazareth, and was rejected by friends and family alike [LK 4: 16-30]? We didn’t see Him get mad and carry a life-long grudge against them. Instead, we saw Him die on the cross in great physical pain and having been scourged and rejected for them. Now, that Dear Ones is love beyond measure-unconditional [agape] love! We all have enemies and detractors in our lives. That can’t be changed, as the world view always clashes with the God-led view of things. It’s how we respond, how close to Christ’s example that we respond that makes the difference. To the bitter end, Christ’s faith in the Father’s presence and protection never wavered. LK 23: 46, “Jesus cried out in a loud voice, ‘Father! Into Your hands I commend My Spirit!’ He said and died.” We know from what happened in MK 15: 38-39, that the Father was with Christ through this whole process on the cross. “The curtain hanging in the Temple was torn in two, from top to bottom. The centurion who was standing there in front of the cross saw how Jesus had die. ‘This man was really the Son of God!’ he said.” We must ask ourselves: Do we have enough faith to know that whatever we do in the name of God, even if it means we must lose our lives doing it, to know that God loves us and is with us all the way?
PRAYER: O Lord, as long as we live, we cannot offer You enough thanks and praise for the amazing sacrifice of Your Son for us. The example that He set of love, faithful obedience, and reverence for You is Your way of letting us know what we must do to eventually be perfected and ready for a life of eternal joy and fellowship with You. We have been admonished to show the kind of love You have for each of us with each other. Today, we acknowledge that command and pledge to carry it out. When we read Your word and engage in two-way prayer with You, You remind us of Your eternal presence in our lives. We see by the obedient and consistent faith that Christ had, that while You were commanding Him to suffer for us, You never stopped loving or abandoned Him. That tells us that You will never stop loving or abandon us, because with faithful obedience to You, we are told [in RO 8: 29] that He is the “first among many brothers.” Just as You gave Christ the ability to endure suffering in faith, You do the same for us, if we will keep our eyes focused on You. Your plan is in place and shall be carried out. We humbly offer You our adoration, worship, loyalty, trust, obedience, honor, glory, praise, and thanks for making us a part of that plan. We love You, Dearest Abba, with all of our hearts. In Christ’s name, amen.
Tomorrow, we will look at the example Christ set for us in our quest to better understand how to become one with His divine nature. Our Lord has been so gracious and generous with His lessons and guidance for us. He is equally generous and gracious with the love He showers on each of us every day. As I have said so often, we are truly a blessed people when we have trust and faith in Him. He is our Jehovah Shammah, God Is With Us. Peter and I send you our love too.
Grace Be With You Always,
Lynn