The Special of the Day… From the Orange Moon Cafe…
"Wondrous"
"We pray with the awareness of addressing a Heart graced with a goodness beyond any conception of glory we can begin to imagine."
As we pray, we do well to keep in mind the character and nature of the One with whom we fellowship through the Lord Jesus Christ, and by the leading of the Holy Spirit.
"God sent not His Son into the world to condemn the world; but that the world through Him might be saved" (John 3:17).
By any measure or standard of moral rightness, our Heavenly Father would have been completely justified to condemn rather than save. That is, by any measure or standard other than His. "Herein is love, not that we loved God, but that He loved us, and sent His Son to be the propitiation for our sins" (I John 4:10). What kind of person sends His eternally beloved Son to an earthly lifetime of continual challenge, and a cross of suffering, forsakenness, and death for those who rebelled against Him? "When we were enemies, we were reconciled to God by the death of His Son" (Romans 5:10). The contemplation takes our breath away, and leads us to kneel on the holy ground where we need no shoes because we cannot possibly stand in the presence of One so good and so wondrous. "For the Lord is good; His mercy is everlasting" (Psalm 100:5).
How do we pray to One of such loving unselfishness and devotion to others? As mentioned in yesterday's message, not one trace of self-centered egotism has ever passed through the heart and mind of God. "Charity (love) seeketh not her own" (I Corinthians 13:5). Our own sensibilities have never known such a glory of character and unselfish disposition. We will one day, if we have trusted the Lord Jesus Christ. "We shall be like Him, for we shall see Him as He is" (I John 3:2). But not yet, and even the most godly among us have never experienced or expressed the perfection of "seeketh not her own" that characterizes the heart of God. "But as touching brotherly love ye need not that I write unto you: for ye yourselves are taught of God to love one another. And indeed ye do it toward all the brethren which are in all Macedonia. But we beseech you, brethren, that ye increase more and more" (I Thessalonians 4:9-10). Thus, we pray with the awareness of addressing a Heart graced with a goodness beyond any conception of glory we can begin to imagine.
We pray with wonder. Certainly, we seek to pray intelligently, and in accordance with God and His Scripturally-revealed truth. "I will pray with the understanding" (I Corinthians 14:15). However, we do well to frequently remind ourselves of Who it is with whom we communicate. We pray to a Father who gave everything dear to Him to make possible our praying. We pray to a Father who forsook His Son in order receive and accept us. We pray to a Father who poured out His wrath on the Lord Jesus so that He could pour out His grace unto us. We pray to a Father of whom the Apostle Paul declared, "He that spared not His own Son, but delivered Him up for us all, how shall He not with Him also freely give us all things?" (Romans 8:32). We pray to a Heart of perfect, infinite, and eternal unselfishness, the love of which "passeth knowledge" (Ephesians 3:19). We pray to One far better than we have known, or ever will know. Yes, when we remember and realize the Heart with whom we commune, we cannot but pray with wonder...
"For how great is His goodness, and how great is His beauty!"
(Zechariah 9:17)
Weekly Memory Verse
And if any man think that he knoweth anything, he knoweth nothing yet as he ought to know.
(I Corinthians 8:2).
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