The Special of the Day… From the Orange Moon Cafe…
"That Loved"
"Your fellowship and mine in this day and forevermore means so much to our God that blood was shed from a Body,
and the presence of the Father and the Spirit was shed from a Heart."
How much does God desire the fellowship of human hearts? The echoes of a sad cry from long ago answer the question…
"My God, My God, why hast Thou forsaken Me?" (Matthew 27:46).
In order to redeem us from condemned alienation unto complete acceptance, our Heavenly Father gave His beloved Son to a cross of sorrow, pain, shame, forsakenness, and death. A breach entered the bond of perfect love that had "from everlasting" existed between the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit (Psalm 90:2). At Calvary, the Son was "made to be sin for us, when knew no sin" (II Corinthians 5:21). This made possible the pouring out of wrath and rejection upon the beloved One who heretofore had been the object of the Father's affectionate devotion in a measure beyond our comprehension. "Thou lovedst Me before the foundation of the world" said the Lord Jesus to His Father, not long before He experienced in time and space something far different, and far more sorrowful than we will ever know (John 17:24). "He hath put Him to grief" (Isaiah 53:10).
We can only go so far in pondering what the cross involved in the heart of God. However, we must go very far in seeking to know how much it affirms and confirms our place in that same heart. Indeed, had it been possible for our Father to have merely decreed our salvation by divine fiat, we could and would have known that He loves us. That His rejection and executed wrath upon the Lord Jesus was necessary for our entrance into God's favor constitutes another matter altogether. Indeed, we define value by what one is willing to pay and sacrifice for the object desired. Consider this as we ponder the Apostle Peter's sublime declaration of how much our Father was willing to remit for our redemption and relationship with Him…
"Forasmuch as ye know that ye were not redeemed with corruptible things, as silver and gold, from your vain conversation received by tradition from your fathers, but with the precious blood of Christ, as of a lamb without blemish and without spot" (I Peter 1:18-19).
Your fellowship and mine in this day and forevermore means so much to our God that blood was shed from a Body, and the presence of the Father and the Spirit was shed from a Heart. This reveals a truth about you and me we will never begin to fully understand. However, we must believe the truth in the most personal way we can, as led and enabled by the Holy Spirit. God dearly loves to meet us in the fellowship of prayer, the pages of Scripture, the communion of fellow believers, and along the pathways of life as He moves upon and within us, and as we respond in remembrance and faith. Yes, this truth, so much larger than can be measured, is so much personally about you. About me. We are that loved, that cherished, that desired, and that precious to the One for whom are hearts were made and redeemed. "My God, My God, why hast Thou forsaken Me?" The answer? That you and I might be received so freely, as made possible by so high a cost.
King David knew little of this redemption compared to what we know. He recognized, however, that God greatly desired the fellowship of his heart. David thus prayed a prayer we do well to echo in the light of Calvary, and of how dear it reveals we are to the Father willing to forsake His Son, that He might receive us unto Himself forevermore…
"When Thou saidst, Seek ye My face; my heart said unto Thee, Thy face, LORD, will I seek."
(Psalm 27:8)
"He hath made us accepted in the Beloved."
(Ephesians 1:6)
Weekly Memory Verse
Walk in the Spirit and ye shall not fulfill the lusts of the flesh."
(Galatians 5:16)
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