The Lord is awe-inspiring, fearsome, fascinating, intriguing, majestic, and full of splendor: breathtaking! Here is what I saw of him and what came to my mind and heart in Philippians 1:8,
"God can testify how I long for all of you with the affection of Christ Jesus."
Paul says the affection he has for his readers is akin to the "affection of Christ Jesus." What do we know of this affection of Jesus Christ? Paul tells us in his letter to the church in Rome that we cannot be separated from this love Jesus Christ has for us, even in the midst of the most severe difficulties we might face, Romans 8:35. We also know that to comprehend the full dimension of the love Jesus Christ has for us is life-altering, "I pray that you, being rooted and established in love, may have power, together with all the Lord's holy people, to grasp how wide and long and high and deep is the love of Christ, and to know this love that surpasses knowledge—that you may be filled to the measure of all the fullness of God." Ephesians 3:17-19.
Jesus taught us what the greatest expression of love looks like, "Greater love has no one than this: to lay down one's life for one's friends." John 15:13. This is exactly what he has done for us. We are told by the writer of Hebrews that Jesus Christ faced his own death on a miserable cross with joy, in anticipation of what his sacrifice would bring, Hebrews 12:2. This sacrifice brought us peace with God, the satisfaction of his justice regarding our sinfulness and a way to enter into God's own family. "God presented Christ as a sacrifice of atonement, through the shedding of his blood—to be received by faith." Romans 3:25. We also read in 1 John 4:10, "This is love: not that we loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son as an atoning sacrifice for our sins."
One of the most beautiful expressions of the love Jesus Christ has for those who are his is couched in his prayer to the Father concerning the trinitarian love within the godhead and its extension to believers. For me, this prayer of Jesus is just breath-taking:
"I pray also for those who will believe in me through their [the apostle's] message, that all of them may be one, Father, just as you are in me and I am in you. May they also be in us so that the world may believe that you have sent me. I have given them the glory that you gave me, that they may be one as we are one— I in them and you in me—so that they may be brought to complete unity. Then the world will know that you sent me and have loved them even as you have loved me. 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 17:20-26.
This is unspeakable love!
Anything of the Lord capture your heart from Scripture today? Share what moved you about him from your Bible reading today. I'd love to hear from you!
Trevor Fisk
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