For those who are in need of love...

Long before he laid down earth’s foundations, 

he had us in mind, 

had settled on us as the focus of his love, 

to be made whole and holy 

         by his love.  

Long, long ago 

he decided to adopt us into his family through Jesus Christ. 

                       Ephesians 1:4

The Bible tells us two great truths:  

1) We were made for a different place 

2) We will get there. 

Honest. How can we be sure? 

The capacity for love and joy,  and empathy and hurt  in the human heart tells us that 

there is a "more". 

The more is not made by the hands of man. 

The more cannot be touched but is can be felt in an embrace. 

The more cannot be smelled but it can be detected in the spring rain. 

The more cannot be heard but is screams with joy at healing and a weeping at pain. 

The more, my friends is Love. 

And Love is a noun, not a verb. 

His name is Jesus. 

Jesus is the more and he took all the less upon himself. 

My daughter says that he gave up all his presents for us. 

In so doing, be brings us to the "there" which is infinitely better than the here. 

The here may lots of things from the there...joy, peace, love...but it still has the here mixed in. 

The wonder is that when we are filled with Love, Christ, the noun, we do not just experience the new place and the more, but we begin to live in it. 

  

Jesus said these things. 

Then, raising his eyes in prayer, he said:

Father, it’s time.
 

Display the bright splendor of your Son
So the Son in turn may show your bright splendor.
 

You put him in charge of everything human
So he might give real and eternal life to all in his charge.
 

And this is the real and eternal life:
That they know you,
The one and only true God,
And Jesus Christ, whom you sent.

The adoption papers have been signed. Sealed. Delivered. 

Bethel Live- Closer Ft. Steffany Frizzell-Gretzinger

through the eyes of Jesus

Then Jesus made a circuit of all the towns and villages. 

He taught in their meeting places, reported kingdom news, and healed their diseased bodies, healed their bruised and hurt lives. 

When he looked out over the crowds, his heart broke. So confused and aimless they were, like sheep with no shepherd. 

The images that have been surfacing from Kieve have been haunting. 

Masterful works of art and light capturing all the real-life drama and emotion of life and death. 

Men with robes and a crucifix standing on a wooden palate. Their Ark. 

Shields, helmets, guns -verses-whatever the hell you can find or steal. 

When I first saw these images my heart was pounding for the valiant priests who stood before the powers of be defiantly waving Jesus, the Prince of Peace, in the midst of hell. 

But today it is different. My eyes have shifted focus. 

I have a coin in my pocket given to me from a friend. It has a cross on the with the image of a Jesus carved through it.  It has the effect that when you look through it you see all the world through Christ's outstretched arms. 

My eyes have shifted focus. 

Look, see Jesus on the cross? He is facing both sides. Nailed, stripped, and beaten. 

The Lamb of God offered for all who would turn to him and be saved. 

  

Christ arrives right on time to make this happen. He didn’t, and doesn’t, wait for us to get ready. 

He presented himself for this sacrificial death when we were far too weak

 and rebellious to do anything to get ourselves ready. 

And even if we hadn’t been so weak, we wouldn’t have known what to do anyway. 

We can understand someone dying for a person worth dying for, and we can understand how someone good and noble could inspire us to selfless sacrifice. 

But God put his love on the line for us by offering his Son in sacrificial death 

while we were of no use whatever to him.