Behold I Show You a Mystery of Love

BEHOLD I SHOW YOU A MYSTERY OF LOVE

PHIL.2: ⁶ Who, being in very nature^[a] God,
did not consider equality with God something to be used to his own advantage;
⁷ rather, he made himself nothing
by taking the very nature^[b] of a servant,
being made in human likeness.
⁸ And being found in appearance as a man,
he humbled himself
by becoming obedient to death—
even death on a cross!

He who owned the moon and the stars; He who was worshiped by tens of thousands of angels; He who shone with the brilliance of a billion suns; He who spoke the universe into existence. It was He who left it all to come to this world for the express purpose of rescuing me from sin and the punishment that was waiting for me. What can I tell you? Can I say I was a good person or that my whole life I sought Him? No, I cannot say those things. I was happy in my sin and content to live for myself alone. But God the Son left all that was His and came in the likeness of sinful flesh. And it was all for us sinners.

What kind of love embraces such humiliation? What kind of God comes in such poverty? Look again and peek over the edge of that trough and see the infant who is God in the flesh. This is our gift…this is the beauty we receive for our ashes. While we have nothing He gives everything. This miracle child is God saying “I love you” to the entire wretched human race. He who is holy reaches out and calls those who are unholy. The innocent must die for the guilty to go free.

Oh the beauty of His holiness! There is none like Jesus. He is above all and in all and through us all. He walked among those who had no idea just who He was. But there was something, yes something about this man they called Jesus. O Lord we are fascinated by You. Oh for too long the church has been obsessed with every issue under the Sun. But when will we become obsessed with Jesus? Will the church at large ever return to His feet? We have mastered Martha's kitchen, but when will we rush to sit with Mary?

He left His eternal dwelling place with all His eternal glory for us. What have we left for Him? How can we cling to this world and all its phoniness and fallen glory of wealth and tinsel and in so doing look away from Him? Just one short glimpse of Him as the Risen and Glorified Christ should immobilize us in broken worship and energize our inner man to rise in the power of His resurrection. But in order for us to gaze at the Eternal One this side of heaven we must stop and turn away from all that glitters in this present world and seek His matchless face with a relentless spirit which will not be denied.

Look down at your hand. He made that. Look at your neighbor. He made him. Look at the moon and the stars and He made them. There is nothing that is made without Him. He existed august and emanating a glory which illuminated the halls of heaven. He was worshiped by angels. And He enjoyed the glorious mystery of a Trinitarian fellowship with the Father and the Spirit. And he left all that to put on the rags of human flesh. Does it sound like a tale told by a fool? Yes, it is. I am a fool for Jesus Christ.

But there is fast approaching a day that will change this present reality and usher in a reality which will confound the wise and create great fear amidst the race we call human. Yes, all those stories many thought as religious superstition will suddenly reveal themselves as the eternal realities that had been waiting for the final revelation. It will all make sense to everyone, but it will spell the death knell for most. The entire human race, past and present, will stand arrested and terrified as the Deity that they had denied makes His entrance.

Who can know it? Who can imagine such an event? We cannot even imagine how one star, our star, can expend more energy in one second than seven million times all the energy of all the nuclear bombs on earth. And yet we pretend to know and understand what the event we call His Second Coming will look and feel like? Here is a secret all who know Christ personally should know. The closer we know and understand Jesus the more we must admit to the majesty of His eternal mystery. That means the more we know the more we experience the glory of what we do not fully know. Yes, the Spirit allows us to experience the majesty of that which we cannot know in all its fullness until that day.

And as men tremble and cry out in fear and even beg for death, we who have been grafted into His very family by grace through faith will tremble under the weight of His surpassing love. How could it be? How could we be granted such an eternal treasure? We did nothing before we knew Him and we did nothing after we knew Him that could possibly earned anything that He has bestowed upon us. But there we will be. Not only basking in His glory, but receiving the end of our faith, even the salvation of our souls. And to think we might have missed it.

But even while we stand amazed at what has happened to us, and the final revelation of His grace, please do not be distracted in your imagination. For there will be nothing, no streets of gold and no gates of pearls and no robes of white that can draw away the attention and devotion that will consume us as we gaze at the Risen Christ, the Lamb that was Slain. Just to see Him with eternal eyes in all His majestic glory will be reward enough. What can keep us from falling on our faces in worship while still lifting our heads so as to keep our eyes fixated upon Him from Whom the nations fled.

What words can capture Him? What temporal emotions can do justice on that day? There He is manifested in beauty unknown to the human mind. There He sits upon a throne arrayed in His own brilliance and accepting of our worship. Like the immoral woman washing His feet with her hair, the King of the Universe will receive the worship of scoundrels and thieves and liars and sinners of every kind and stripe, but who now have not only been washed by His blood, but have been made to be like Him. Oh my, all our doctrines have been left behind as we enter that kind of revelation.

And although eternity cannot be measured by time, the freshness and overwhelming atmosphere of that first day will not dissipate or grow old as time goes on.

The invisible God who is a spirit now reveals Himself so that we who know Him might see Him. What kind of unspeakable mystery is this which has been granted unto us? Why has He done all this, and why did He sacrifice Himself for us? This is beyond us and too much to understand except to say that as we are in His presence we may understand that God is love. We will not need to have all the answers to our questions. Just to see Him and feel the power of His love will satisfy the saints for all eternity. What will think about our human love then?

We have loved pets and sports teams and cars and preachers and family members, but what will that love look like when we see Him who IS love? When the waves of His love come crashing down upon the blood washed throng, what then of earthly love? Without being granted a new body we would all have to die before Him. So go ahead, look around and see the realities that the Spirit had to describe with human words. It will be that the words gold and silver and jewels and pearls were just used by the Spirit to give us some inkling about what was in store for us. But the tangible realities of heaven will surpass anything we knew here on earth.

And how real is heaven? Paul said that when he was captured into the third heaven, it was so real he could not tell whether it was in or out of the body. That is how real it was. And John the Apostle spent time leaning upon the chest of Jesus here on earth. But when he came face to face with the Risen and Glorified Christ, he fell at His feet as though dead. When all is said and done we will spend all eternity in a place of unimaginable bliss. But again, it is not that which will capture our hearts and minds throughout eternity.

It will be Jesus.

Look around heaven and see what He left for you,

but do it quickly because your eyes will not suffer long away from gazing at Him.