LOVE SO AMAZING!

“‘Father, I want those you have given me to be with me where I am, and to see my glory, the glory you have given me because you loved me before the creation of the world.

“‘Righteous Father, though the world does not know you, I know you and they know that you have sent me.

‘”I have made you known to them, and will continue to make you known in order that the love you have for me may be in them and that I myself may be in them.'” John 7:24-26.

This beautiful, intimate communication between the Son and His Father breathes the atmosphere of tender love. After a physical and geographical separation from Him of thirty-three years, Jesus’ taste of living as a human being in time and space, He was on the brink of experiencing the worst that a human being could ever suffer. It was the necessary gateway to His return to His beloved Father to take His place once again with the Father in the eternal realm.

A new position awaited Jesus if He completed His mission to reveal the greatest measure of the Father’s love for His fallen world by being obedient to death, even death on a cross. He would be exalted to the highest place and given the highest name in all the universe. He would be elevated to king, ruling over everything, and head of the church, His body, the composite woman who was destined to be His bride when the universe was restored to its original perfection.

Jesus had spent three years imparting to this group of men whom the Father had given Him, the nature of the Father and the enormity of His love for His human race. By teaching and showing them what the Father is like, He wooed them back to intimacy with Himself so that they would understand how much the Father loved them and desired their love in return.

Jesus had done what He could and finished the task, sowing the seeds of the words God had given Him into His disciples. He had the confidence that, when He had returned to the Father, the Holy Spirit would continue the work of nurturing in them the knowledge of the truth.

It was time to go. In one last expression of desire, Jesus poured out His soul to His Abba. So precious had these men become to Him that He wanted them to be as close as they could ever be to Him, with Him, by His side so that they could gaze on His glory, the glory He shared with the Father before the beginning of time.

Yes, they had been with Him on earth, listening, watching and marvelling at a human being so different from all other humans that it took His every effort to teach them that He was truly the Son of God. However, this was only preparation for what was yet to come, something so otherworldly that the Apostle Paul could only declare, “No eye has seen, no ear had heard…” No imagination could stretch to embrace so glorious a being whom they were yet to see.

Jesus’ love for His disciples was so deep that He wanted to share it all, not only His place in eternity with the Father but the environment of love so pure and so all-embracing that He would give them not only His love and the love of the Father but His very position of power and authority in His universe —  His  throne. To be “in Him” is to be in everything He is and share in everything He owns.

Who can fathom the mystery of being “in Christ”? Through His Spirit, we are in such intimate union with Him that our spirits have been fused to His Spirit, inseparably joined to Him so that we have become one. This does not mean that we have become gods! Nowhere in God’s word does He even suggest such nonsense. No, He has restored us to the place of oneness with Him that He created in His first human pair.

It was God’s intention that Jesus, through His death on the cross, would reconcile all things to Himself — “For God was pleased to have all His fulness dwell in Him, and through Him to reconcile to Himself all things, whether things on earth or things in heaven, by making peace through His blood shed on the cross.” Colossians1:19, 20, restoring perfect harmony in the universe, the environment He prepared as a home for His children.

How can we ever fathom a love so great? We can only respond by loving Him in return and giving ourselves unreservedly to His great plan for us.

Acknowledgement

Scripture taken from THE HOLY BIBLE, NEW INTERNATIONAL VERSION®, NIV® Copyright © 1973, 1978, 1984, 2011 by Biblica, Inc.® Used by permission. All rights reserved worldwide.