“I’ve loved you the way my Father has loved me. Make yourselves at home in my love. If you keep my commands you’ll remain intimately at home in my love. That’s what I’ve done—kept my Father’s commands and made myself at home in His love.”
“I’ve told you these things for a purpose: that my joy might be your joy, and your joy wholly mature. This is my command: Love one another the way I loved you. This is the best way to love.” (John 15:9-12, The Message)
Intimacy
Why do butterflies fly?
Why wouldn't God come to us in the most intimate of ways when His greatest sovereign plan of all time made provision for it?
Why do butterflies hunger to fly?
Why do stars hunger to hang in the sky?
Why do flowers hunger to bloom?
Why do babies cry and mothers meet their need?
Why do we become hungry within our bellies?
God is reminding us of a greater hunger. All these things are Him alluring us to the need only He can meet—the hunger of our soul. The longing of our hearts. Our craving for intimacy. We may try to fill this need in many ways. But it is only when our great desire for God (the desire which He planted within us) meets with His desire for us that our need for intimacy is met. This happens through the Spirit. The same Spirit who lives in God the Father, lives in the Son, and lives in us.
Why does part of our heart run for freedom from Him instead of running for freedom in Him? Why do we love Him so imperfectly? Why, as we are caught in this snare, does He persistently love us—the imperfect—so perfectly? Why? Because of His son, Jesus. Because God gave the perfect one to love the imperfect ones, perfectly. Why? For His glory, so that we might share in this wondrous love that each person of the Godhead shares. God’s perfect love has won, will win, and is winning the battle for our hearts and our affections. He meets the hunger of our souls and hearts completely. He is relentless. At times you may be so filled with His love that you feel overwhelmed. Nothing satisfies as fully as resting in His wondrous love for us.
Why do butterflies fly with air beneath their wings?
Why do the stars hang in the sky as from a string?
Why do flowers bloom before our very eyes?
Why do mothers feed their young from their very own bodies?
Why do we hunger for God's love?
Because God placed a hunger for His perfect love within our hearts.
The same love the Father has for the Son, He has for us. His love has won, will win, and is winning. Because of a great battle that was fought at the cross, His love won for you and for me, quenching this thirst for an endless intimacy ...
God’s heart cries out, “Don't be afraid. I will not reject you. You may suffer but you are safe. Your heart is safe with me. Come close to me. You are mine. There is none like you. Come be one with me as I, the Spirit, and my Son are one.”
And so we are one. As the sky has no end, let us explore the endless possibilities of this intimacy. Let us be ruined by Him. Captured by Him. Let us let His perfect love invade us today, now, this very moment, for His glorious love ... Intimacy.
Prayer
Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, we ponder the things of you day and night. We long to grow in knowing you more. O Spirit, work in our hearts to rid us of our independence and control. Please, Lord, increase our trust in you and not ourselves. Then give us your strength, your peace, your joy, yourself in our weakness. Let us know the power, the resurrecting power that raised Christ from the dead, which lives in us, and bonds us together as one. Fill us. Surround us with your mighty, gentle, unconditional love. Jesus, we are seated with you, as you are with the Father, in the heavenlies. Be alive in and through us in a mighty way.
Written 2004—Revised 2010
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