“And
when I saw him, I fell at his feet as dead…” (Revelation 1:17)
It would seem that the Fatherhood of
God has replaced the Sovereignty of God as the perceived theme of the Bible.
It’s easy to forget that the “disciple of love,” who laid his head on the bosom
of the Lord at that final supper, is also the same one who fell at His feet as a
dead man. In our desire to emphasize the accessibility of the Savior and our
lofty standing as recipients of His love, we are apt to overlook the sheer
improbability of our position because of the greatness of His. The overriding
message of the Bible is not the love of God, but His superiority over everyone and
everything. This is what makes His love so breathtaking. That He would create
man for His own pleasure then set His love upon him, even making a way of
reconciliation after he chose to disobey Him, should leave us, as John, limp
with awe.
George Morrison has written, “Things
are not right if we can only love God more by reverencing Him less.” If we can
only relate to God by making Him more like us, what does that say about our
shallowness? Like you, I find great comfort in verses that remind us that Jesus
“became us,” so that we could become the “sons of God”; in fact, I wrote along
those lines recently. But in all Christ’s complete manhood, He never once
relinquished His Deity. And now, even as He intercedes for us with the empathy
He displayed while here on earth, He is described by John as having hair as
white as wool, eyes like a flame of fire, feet like burnished brass, and a
voice like all the oceans of the world breaking against all the shorelines at one
time. Such a vision would surely banish any light familiarity that might
characterize our worship and service.
You may think the reason for John’s
sincere show of reverence was that He was exiled from the crowded, distracting
city to the loneliness of an island; but I would suggest, it was because he was
“in the Spirit on the Lord’s day” (vv. 9-10). Spirit wrought worship is characterized more by reverence than
rowdiness. Could we not say that when we praise God more for His love and
less for His Being, then our own love for Him is based on this same estimate of
Him. If I worship Him only because He loves me, then I don’t want a God; I want
someone to love me. In a day when Christian love is talked and written about so
much, I wonder how much of our so-called love for Jesus is recognized by God,
when it contains so little reverence?
I must confess, I’ve had to judge my
own heart and life in this area, and I’m not pleased with all I see. I never
want to forget that God is God whether I feel loved or not. I need his mercy
and forgiveness far more than His love, and I have both through the Blood of
His Son, Jesus Christ. And as it turns out…that makes me feel very loved.
“When we come into this sweet relationship, we
are beginning to learn astonished reverence, breathless adoration, awesome
fascination, lofty admiration of the attributes of God and something of the
breathless silence that we know when God is near.” A.W. Tozer
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