Monthly Archives: April 2017

“It is an absolute human certainty,” wrote John Joseph Powell in his book, The Secret of Staying in Love, “that no one can know his own beauty or perceive a sense of his own worth until it has been reflected back to him in the mirror of another loving, caring human being.”

To know, and to be known, is the greatest feeling you and I can ever have.

It is the secret of the truly satisfying life – the key that unlocks all our longings, the assurance of our embrace and acceptance, the heart and soul of our identity.

Nothing saddens us more than the sense that no one knows us – the isolation, loneliness and despair of being alone, even when we’re not.

Nothing gives us more hope and confidence and sheer joy than knowing, at the end of each day, that there is at least one other who understands us and loves us for who we are – and in spite of what we’re not.

Here is the essence of love without condition – to know and to still love. It is not to overlook, as is often thought, but rather to see clearly and honestly and then to love. It is not the denial of reality but the triumph of the heart.

In the most beautiful description of love ever penned, Paul the apostle tells us of a love greater than mere sentiment. He writes not of a pliable emotion but an enduring commitment. Not an easy ignorance but a knowing loyalty.

This is muscular devotion that knows and presses on:

“Love suffers long and is kind; love does not envy; love does not parade itself, is not puffed up; does not behave rudely, does not seek its own, is not provoked, thinks no evil; does not rejoice in iniquity, but rejoices in the truth; bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things” (I Corinthians 13:4-7, NKJV).

“Love never gives up … “(NLT).

This is not the shallow sensuous nonsense of Reality TV, with its flittering suitors. It is the ancient sacred vows.

Vows that acknowledge the hidden challenges of an unknown future and the inspired love strong enough to endure them – and deep enough to grow through them.

A love that fails not but bears out the victory.

This is agape. This is God’s love.

This love is based on two eternal and immutable, yet seemingly contradictory, truths:
God’s intimate knowledge and his undying compassion.

David knew God knew him – inside out, to every dark corner – and loved him still. David knew too that God loved him the most when he deserved it the least.

From this awareness of divine intimacy, the shepherd psalmist who became king wrote the incomparable 139th Psalm. Has there ever been a more beautiful description of God’s continual presence and abiding faithfulness?

“O Lord, thou hast searched me, and known me,” David confesses in verse one. The psalmist proceeds to tell of all the different times and situations in which God knew, understood and cared.

“You know everything about me” (NLT).

God sees him when he moves and when he’s still; when he speaks and when he remains silent. God knows David’s innermost thoughts. God is everywhere: “You go before me and follow me” (Psalm 139:5, NLT).

He’s closer than David’s shadow.

David admits this divine knowledge of his intimacy is “too wonderful for me, too great for me to understand!” (verse 6, NLT).

Everywhere David goes – every place he might go if he could – God is there.
“Whither shall I go from thy spirit? Or whither shall I flee from thy presence?” (verse 7, KJV).

To the heavens, God is there. To the grave, God is there. If David could fly with “the wings of the morning” to the farthest oceans, even there God is present, alert and fully engaged.
Even if David wanted to hide from God, he knows it would futile.

He doesn’t.

For David knows that wherever he goes, “even there shall thy hand lead me, and thy right hand shall hold me” (verse 10, KJV). It is the presence of God that protects and guides him.

After acknowledging the intimacy of God in time and space, David exults in praise over God’s creative intimacy.

“I will praise thee; for I am fearfully and wonderfully made” (verse 14, KJV).

David describes the hidden knowledge of God; his exquisite detailed workmanship of body and soul. God had “knit me together in my mother’s womb” (verse 13, NLT).

David marvels at the beauty and perfection of the divine design. God saw David, and knew him intimately, even “when I was made in secret, and curiously wrought in the lowest parts of the earth … and in thy book all my members were written” (verse 15, KJV).

“… as if embroidered with various colors” (The Amplified Bible).

David’s own worth is reflected in the glorious mirror of God’s intimate knowledge of him and of God’s care and compassion – his endless and unchanging agape.

“How precious are your thoughts about me, O God. They cannot be numbered!” (verse 17, NLT).

The best thing of all?

“And when I wake up, you are still with me!” (verse 18, NLT).

How wonderful to know that the God who knew and loved David so intimately is our own intimate God.

He had it all.

All the glory. All the honor. All the preeminence.

No one was higher. No one was greater. His light shined the brightest.

He was the only Son.

There was no other like him – not even close.

By him were the heavens made; the sun, moon and stars did his bidding; the universe bowed down. Through him was every ruler and kingdom and throne set forth, and they governed under his sovereign authority.

Paul exalted him in his beautiful prologue to the Colossians – a song of infinite and unparalleled praise:

“And he is before all things, and by him all things consist … who is the beginning, the firstborn from the dead: that in all things he might have the preeminence” (Colossians 1:17-18, KJV).

“His own almighty arm upheld the spheres,” declared English preacher Charles Spurgeon, “the praises of cherubim and seraphim perpetually surrounded him; the full chorus of the hallelujahs of the universe unceasingly flowed to the foot of his throne”.

We occasionally hear that someone has won “universal acclaim”.

It may be safely said that of Jesus Christ only is this literally true.

In reverential amazement we struggle to see, understand and more fully appreciate what took place in heaven, and then on earth, two thousand years ago.

Jesus Christ was God, Paul tells the Philippians. With all the glory and honor of the deity.

“Who, being in the form of God, thought it not robbery to be equal with God” (Philippians 2:6, KJV). Jesus did not “grasp” at divine equality (NIV); he accepted it as his right and position. Then Jesus did something extraordinary – at the request and with the approval of God the Father.

The angels marveled. Heaven went silent.

Jesus consented to become human; to be a man.

He “emptied himself” (Philippians 2:7, NASB).

Jesus laid aside his power and glory. He “made himself of no reputation” (KJV).

The Greeks had a word for this self-emptying: kenosis.

In this act of self-denial, the Son of God “made himself nothing” (NIV).

In kenosis, Jesus emptied himself of all self-will and became entirely submissive to his Father’s will and purpose. Jesus depleted himself.

Paul the apostle shows us Jesus as the premier example of humble sacrifice and tells us in his letter to the Philippians to “let this mind be in you, which was also in Christ Jesus” (Philippians 2:5, KJV).

Jesus left his throne and glory in heaven and came to earth.

In being “made in the likeness of men” (verse 7, KJV), Jesus never surrendered his divine attributes; instead he voluntarily relinquished the independent exercise of those powers.

In the flesh, he remained God.

He told his disciples he would lay down his life and take it up again; this would be by his power and his choice; it would be his prerogative.

“The Father loves me,” Jesus said, “because I sacrifice my life so I may take it back again. No one can take my life from me. I sacrifice it voluntarily. For I have the authority to lay it down when I want to and also to take it up again” (John 10: 17-18, NLT).

When the Roman soldiers came to take him captive in the garden, his very voice had the power to throw them to the ground (John 18:6). “I am he”, he calmly said and in that moment displayed his divinity.

Still, they took him.

The creatures crucified their Creator.

Here was the ultimate kenosis.

Jesus humbled himself and became a man. He took upon himself not just the form of a servant, but a suffering servant. He became obedient unto death, but not just any death – death on the cross.

This was the great self-emptying of a God who so loved the world that he gave up his Son.

Jesus Christ was acquainted with grief that you and I might know joy. He was rejected by men that we might be accepted by God.

He faced hell’s worst in order that you and I might inherit heaven’s best. Jesus was wounded so that by his stripes you and I could be healed.

He endured shame so you and I could inherit glory. He suffered that we might be comforted. He died so you and I could live forever.

Charles Wesley beautifully wrote:

“He left his father’s throne above; so free, so infinite his grace; emptied himself of all but love, and bled for Adam’s helpless race; tis mercy all, immense and free; for, O my God, it found out me!”

After Calvary and the resurrection, God restored his Son’s former glory and his former throne. The Father gave his Son a name above all names; a name so great that at the name of Jesus someday every knee will bow and every tongue will confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father (Philippians 2: 10-11).

Jesus had it all and gave it all up so you and I could receive it all as a free gift.

“Amazing love! How can it be,
That Thou, my God, shouldst die for me?”