The Holiest of All

Remove your shoes, for the place in which you stand is holy ground.

Only a few decades ago scientist thought that the universe contained several hundred million stars. Then they thought there was more than one galaxy. And today they know there are hundreds of billions of galaxies each with billions upon billions of stars. Light travels at 186,000 miles per second and the closest star to ours can be reached if you traveled the speed of light for over four straight years.
On the other extreme there are approximately 50 trillion cells in the one human body. And there are approximately 200 trillion atoms in one human cell. The cell was not “discovered” until the 17th century, and the theory of atoms began in the 6thy century but it wasn’t certified until the 18th century. Yes, man has an inflated view of himself and his intellectual prowess.
Absorb the enormity of creation and its colossal complexity. Our minds cannot even comprehend these things. But as you surrender to the majesty of creation, go a step further. Think about the Creator of all that is. And when you meditate upon the material universe, also remember that time itself was also the handiwork of such a deity. Everything from the ability to think and the ability to feel is a created gift. This is the Creator and His glory. And those who understand these things and yet deny even the existence of a Creator are called fools.
But now, as we proceed, we must remove the sandals from our hearts and minds because we are entering the sacred and the Holy of Holies. This Creator desires us to know Him and has provided a way to know Him on the only level upon which our finite minds can navigate. You see, in our present state we can not even fully comprehend His creation, much less digest the insurmountable completeness of His Person. In fact, when we attempt to describe the Trinity we are reduced to using such pitiful examples as eggs and water. The very nature of God as a spirit stands untouched and undefined by man. Our God is beyond human imagery.
Again we move further into a sacred realm of the glory. This God, who has lent us many names that describe Himself, is a God of reationship. Father, Son, Master, Lord, Friend, Healer, Comforter, and all the rest lift the veil ever so slightly, but still with intense revelatory majesty, and those glimpses overwhelm those who actually meditate upon Him Whom they describe. Science refuses to address the Creator, or it caricatures Him as a “force”. But this Creator is much more than just some self sustaining force that exists in the abstract.
When we reach this chamber we cannot rely on the visible universe or even the stories of men. Only God the Spirit can open our hearts to the wonders in this spiritual land. The Spirit lifts the veil high enough for the lowest sinner to enter, and in this hallowed place intellect vanishes. Oh yes, this is the dwelling place that can only be entered by revelation. Try and use your natural understanding and you will be denied entrance into this eternal glory. This is the brilliance of Who God is and what he has done and is doing.
So this God wishes to meet and fellowship with us, and he desires to reveal Himself and His heart to a finite and ignorant race. He uses voices, and burning bushes, and smoke and fire, and thunder and lightning, and borrows the vocal chords of men of old and speaks prophetic wonders about Himself. Centuries of all kinds of revelations come forth with a variety of words and metaphors. But God has a secret which He had placed neatly within those prophetic words and incubated until His appointed time. God’s ultimate revelation would arrive in Bethlehem, and God would take on the form of a man.
The Incarnation was beyond the ability of man to comprehend, much less forsee. In fact, the very reason for such a thing is far beyond all human reason and seems to defy what man thought he knew about God. Why would the Creator desire to come in the form of His creation, to say nothing of His rebellious and sinful creation as well? God as a man living among men; it was an unthinkable phenomenon. And this was not just so man could get a clear revelation of who God was, no, there was a more wonderful and confounding purpose for this deity in human flesh.
He came to die. You read me correctly, God came to die. You have now arrived at the chikinah glory of God. This God is love, and this love was beyond human understanding. Most people would not die for their friends, even if their friends were wonderful people. But who would die for one’s enemies? Who would lay down their lives for those who hated them? And what kind of loves makes the righteous die for the unrighteous? This is the mystery of all eternity: That God could and would die as a man as a substitute for the punishment justly due His own enemies.
Redemption on this level must be believed and received by faith. It can be believed in no other way since it makes no earthly sense. But the deepest part of this redemptive mystery is the cross. A heathen implement designed to elicit the greatest amount of pain and suferring as well as provide a colossal public indignity would be the redemptive vehicle of divine choice??? The Redeemer willingly and designedly surrenders to death, the death by crucifixion, and offers the whole world eternal redemption and eternal life through His unfathomable sacrifice.
Go ahead and claim to understand it all and reveal yourself a self righteous fool. The simplicity and horror of such a spectacle boggles the mind and embarrasses the wise. Modern and sophisticated man is supposed to believe such a thing? Scientist scoff and philosophers mock. Learned men laugh and religious men refuse such nonsense. Politicians drape themselves in token representations of cultural Christianity while charlatans preach a religion of self aggrandizement. Self proclaimed theologians dissect His sufferings and reduce the cross to nothing more than an example. Cults spread a false Christ and deceive millions.
But for those of us who completely by His grace have been led into a personal experience with the Christ, we can only testify of Who He is and what He has done. Mock if you must but we have been to the foot of the cross and we have not only seen His oozing blood and His ravaged body, but we have felt that blood cover our very beings with a joy unspeakable and full of glory! There is nothing with which we can compare with the soul cleansing experience of a personal redemption through faith in the Lord Jesus. We have been broken and the Potter is reshaping us. We have seen Him upon that cross and we have seen us there as well. He is our very life.
So lift up your eyes into the clear night sky and as the light of the stars enters your eyes remember this: The Creator of all you see and of the eyes with which you see it loves you and desires you to know Him. But you will not know Him through a telescope or a microscope. You will not know Him purely by investigation or through an intellectual process alone. You can only know Him by visiting a hill just outside of the gates of Jerusalem. And if the Spirit illuminates your heart and mind and gives you sight, and if you see the Creator dying upon a wooden cross, and if your heart rises in childlike faith toward Him, then and only then can you know Him as He is.

How can I be so sure?

Because I did not share a story told to me.

I shared the story I live.

I know this Jesus and it changed me forever.