The Special of the Day… From the Orange Moon Cafe
“Personal”
“For the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord” (Romans 6:23).
What is eternal life provided so freely to us, but at such great cost to our Lord? He told us…
“This is life eternal, that they might know Thee, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom Thou hast sent” (John 17:3; emphasis added).
Eternity involves quality far more than quantity. Certainly, to live forever constitutes a most wondrous gift. For that life to involve personal knowledge of God, however, constitutes a far more thrilling prospect of glories to come. How long we shall live pales in comparison to Who we shall know in such an eternity of grace. “All shall know Me” declared the Lord in a simple statement regarding His children that glimmers with prospects of His Person to be known forevermore in “wonders without number” (Hebrews 8:11; Job 9:10).
Of all the adjectives that might describe our Lord, none more define Him than “personal.” He exists as a conscious, self aware, communicating Being “from everlasting” in the relationship of Father, Son, and Holy Spirit (Psalm 90:2). Originally created in His image, human beings exist as the creatures most endowed with capacity for relationship and fellowship with our Lord, and subsequently with each other. The two greatest commands confirm…
“"Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind, and with all thy strength. This is the first commandment. And the second is like, namely this, Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself" (Mark 12:30-31).
Of all that we do in the “fearfully and wonderfully made” components of our humanity, our Heavenly Father calls us first to the loving relationship and fellowship primary in Himself (Psalm 139:14). Salvation in the Lord Jesus spiritually births our capacity for such devotion to God and others as the very heart of our life and existence. Whatever our multitudinous doings as human beings may involve, we must keep as primary the expectation of God being personal with us, our response thereunto, and our relating to people as the fruit of relating to our Father. No less than the Apostle Paul declared that without love, “I am nothing” (I Corinthians 13:2) All of Paul’s labors, even for God, would have been dust and ashes had he not devoted himself to genuine relationship with the Lord and people in the love of Christ.
Whatever this day holds, God gives to us the gift of relationship and fellowship with Himself and people as primary. Nothing compares with being loved by Him, knowing it, and then responding to Him in mutual devotion. Such grace will then flow through us to people as relating to God leads us to relate to others. Our Lord is personal. We can say nothing truer, nothing better, nothing more illuminating, and nothing more enabling as we seek to absorb and reflect His glory. “This is life eternal” declared the Lord Jesus, the One who lived, died, and rose again to deliver us from anything less than the personal reality for which we exist forevermore, and in this day.
“For this cause we also, since the day we heard it, do not cease to pray for you, and to desire that ye might be filled with the knowledge of His will in all wisdom and spiritual understanding, that ye might walk worthy of the Lord unto all pleasing, being fruitful in every good work, and increasing in the knowledge of God.”
(Colossians 1:9-10)
Weekly Memory Verse
My son, despise not the chastening of the Lord; neither be weary of His correction. For whom the Lord loveth He correcteth; even as a father the son in whom He delighteth.
(Proverbs 3:11-12).
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