Through Jesus, heaven saw what we saw, felt what we felt, and experienced everything you and I do every day. Jesus stepped into our shoes, literally and said, I will take all of their sin, I am willing to die instead of them. Not because He desired it, but because He loved us and He was the only one who could. (Luke 22:42, 2 Corinthians 5:21)
I used to look at the above verse and think, yep, it makes total sense. What better than to have everyone you come in contact with see Jesus, right? But when I read the verse more carefully I saw that Paul was determined to "Know" nothing else. I've been praying and mediating a lot about why Jesus came and what He actually did. That word, "Know" stuck out to me one morning in particular.
What God let me see next was, what I believe to be, the real reason for Paul's declaration. Who Jesus is and what Jesus did are the only important things to know. Why? Because all that results in what follows that knowledge is first established by understanding it.
So exactly what does Paul "know"?
1. He knows that Jesus Christ is the only One; the eternal Word, Life and Spirit of God who chose to become a man. (John 1:1, 14)
2. He knows that Jesus Christ crucified is the only act of Love that saves; that nobody else and nothing else can save us. (Hebrews 9:12-14)
The Bible says we should always be prepared when asked to give a reason for the Hope we have, (1 Peter 3:15) and there is only one reason.
Abba Father, the eternal God full of Grace and truth, Loved us while we were unlovable and utterly incapable of Loving. He became a man to hold our hands and walk us back along the way Home.
The blood of heaven was spilled and our curse was lifted, we were made free again to know intimacy as God had always intended it. We now have but to ask, to extend a weary hand upward, and all of what we lost is irrevocably restored.
Now consider Paul again for a moment and all he knew. Consider his reaction to wisdom:
"But may it never be that I would boast, except in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, through which the world has been crucified to me, and I to the world." (Galatians 6:14)
Consider what you might do or say, how you might react now knowing the reason for the Hope within you. (1 John 2:2)
"Therefore in Christ Jesus I have found reason for boasting in things pertaining to God. For I will not presume to speak of anything except what Christ has accomplished through me" (Romans 15:17-18)
Now consider it all Joy, because it is, and have a blessed and happy new year!
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