Fearlessly Courageous
Desk of Dennis Piller
1/15/2021
Savoring Jesus Christ
I was praying for my sister and sister-in-law who are both caregivers of my wife Dyan’s mom and my mom. Her mother is in the later stages of Alzheimer’s and my mom is in good health at 95. But the weight they bear in carrying for them is beyond my personal capabilities. It caused me to appreciate even more the many front-line nurses and Doctors who literally pour their hearts and lives out to the world at large. They don’t know these strangers but give their lives away letting their love flow like an open faucet of grace. It gave me a clearer meaning of “ To Live is Christ and to die is gain.”
But Jesus didn’t just die for us!
He intentionally suffered the most inhumane death so we might be with him. He became our shield and salvation from the powers that would steal eternity from us. It says his ways are above our ways. Isaiah 55:8 As much as we pour out our love to our families and those who are suffering and need our help. There is something and someone greater. “As high as the heavens are about the earth.” Isaiah 55:9 That is who God is. He is immeasurably more.
Shouldn’t that be the joy to die for? Savoring Jesus himself.
I thought why isn’t He held in that elite and most precious position? How could we not see that? What does it mean that we don’t? Doesn’t serving at church and giving to the poor cover that? Would you think about that? Is anything more important than a relationship – anything more real than being in love… with God? And if we can’t really be overwhelmed by it or show it… What does that mean? We are surely missing a critical component. Wouldn’t you agree?
A vital piece that must be alive.
It should be overwhelmingly a sense of elation, honor, and awe for who He is. The God of creation – lover of my soul. Who am I that he should consider me? Psalm 8 Protect me! Prepare eternity for me let alone die for me. Why? So, he can be with me! So I can enjoy the Joy that is Christ … today!. In the middle of ugly, unfair, blasphemous, and the unholy. Joy in Christ alone! How can one even comprehend such love? And if I can’t see that — Fall on my face in humble adoration… Then dear god please open my eyes to see and feel what I only know the fringes of or not at all. Lord don’t let me die not knowing this about you. Don’t let me live missing what should be my piece of heaven now. In the middle of all this pain and drama, Lord that I could revel in the peace and glory and knowledge that you are above all principalities and powers. All kings and kingdoms. Lord if I do not know the intensity of that kind of adoration then break me. Call these dry bones to be awakened for only you can cause the blind to see. Lord, I could live with being physically blind in my life but not spiritually blind to the glory of who you are. Change me. Forgive me for my unbelief. Forgive my hard-heartedness… give me instead, a new heart of flesh. That I might know you and be moved by you above all else. For there is none like you! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vvm1bCMEqMM&list=RDvvm1bCMEqMM&start_radio=1&rv=vvm1bCMEqMM&t=78&t=0 Michael W. Smith: There is None Like You Psalm 8 When I consider your heavens, the work of your fingers, the moon and the stars, which you have set in place, 4 what is mankind that you are mindful of them, human beings that you care for them?[c] 5 You have made them[d] a little lower than the angels[e] and crowned them[f] with glory and honor. 6 You made them rulers over the works of your hands; you put everything under their[g] feet: 7 all flocks and herds, and the animals of the wild, 8 the birds in the sky, and the fish in the sea, all that swim the paths of the seas. 9 Lord, our Lord, how majestic is your name in all the earth!
