Are You Secure?
2 The evening meal was in progress, and the devil had already prompted Judas, the son of Simon Iscariot, to betray Jesus. 3 Jesus knew that the Father had put all things under his power, and that he had come from God and was returning to God; 4 so he got up from the meal, took off his outer clothing, and wrapped a towel around his waist. 5 After that, he poured water into a basin and began to wash his disciples’ feet, drying them with the towel that was wrapped around him. In this passage, we have Jesus Christ, King of Kings washing the disciples feet which was the task of a common house servant. That is wonderful in and of itself; however, Judas was included in those disciples whose feet Jesus washed. Jesus knew that Judas had already conspired to hand Jesus over to the politicians and preachers who wanted to kill him. Jesus spoke to each disciple, including Judas with love and compassion. What kept Jesus from hating Judas and calling him out in front of the disciples and running him down as a worthless individual? He was secure in God's love for Him and He was significant in God's plan for His life, and He knew His true identity. "Jesus knew that the Father had put all things under his power, and that he had come from God and was returning to God;" It is very important to note that a tthis point, Jesus had all power because it was what He did with that power and authority tells us why God wants to and has empowered us. He did not empower us to rule over others; He did not empower us to beat up on the devil (all you have to do is resist the devil and he runs like a scalded dog--he's nothing); He did not empower us to whip the infidels; He empowers us to use that power to come under others and lift them up; in other words, He has given us the authority to love. We can not begin to exercise this power to love if we don't understand and know what Jesus knew at that moment. Let's face it; Judas was about to hand him over to be crucified, and Jesus was able to still reach out and love Judas, but if someone looks at us wrong, our hair falls out. Husbands are to love their wives as Christ loved the church. The image of Edith Bunker telling Archie to put his feet up and running to get him a beer has the roles reversed there. Husbands are called to love and serve their wives, not take the throne and position of authority and lord it over them. Get the picture; we have to know we are secure in God's love and significant in His plan if we are to love others*. The good news is that God has made us secure in his love and significant in His plan by the death, burial and resurreciton of Jesus Christ. Jesus shed his blood for the total removal of our sins from God's sight. He did that so He could put His spirit in us by the power of His resurrection. He puts His Spirit in us to tell us our true identity: "16 The Spirit himself testifies with our spirit that we are God’s children. 17 Now if we are children, then we are heirs—heirs of God and co-heirs with Christ, if indeed we share in his sufferings in order that we may also share in his glory. " This should grab us in the depths of our hearts and settle the issue of our security and significance once for all. We are not only God's children, but Co-Heirs with Christ. That means that our signigicance on this eart his just as important to God as Jesus presence. It means that God's love for us is no less than is love for Jesus Christ! Knowing this and believing it are two different things. The rubber meets the road when someone is criticizing, disappointing or betraying us; it is at this point we must believe the beauty of the gospel and the fact that all of our needs are met in Christ lest we pay attention to our hurt feelings believing we have to save our own butts and seek to eliminate the threat to our needs. When we do that we will react in the flesh and lash out at our source of discomfort because everything inside of us will be screaming out to be loved, accepted and forgiven!! We must lock into the gospel telling ourselves, "I am significant in God's plan and secure in God's love; I don't care how it feels, what it looks like or what my circumstances may be; right now based on the good news of Jesus Christ, I am totally loved and accepted; empowered and equipped to love myself and others.
*To study out your security and significance further, read The Alpha Series by John Glenn
The Marriage Builder by Larry Crabb
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Some time in eternity past, God created angels perhaps countless millions of angels. The angels have ranks or at least various classifications, but all of God's angels were created to worship and love God. We know that Satan led a rebellion in heaven so obviously the angels had the capacity to cease loving God - and God allowed Satan's rebellion to split the angelic ranks. Ultimately Satan and his fallen angels came to rule the earth, in a sin-cursed environment. It had to have been part of God's plan or He would have disallowed it all.
But then God created man and we were placed in the order of things, just a little lower than the angels in God's overall hierarchy. With all the good angels still around heaven to worship God, why did God bother with another flawed creation? What was His point? Man (the term includes women too you know)must have proven to be a huge disappointment. God is Love. Man is a mess. It's almost as if God had second thoughts after He saw man's tendency toward evil, only evil all the time. He even drowned out the world's population to start over again.
But think about it! The process that God created for us is precise and perfect! Our free will is the test that we are all confronted with. We can learn to Love God as He loves us, or, we can reject Him completely. God cannot be in the presence of sin. Even the sinful angels were cast out of heaven. So when all is said and done in God's plan, those who truly love Him, really and truly love Him from the heart, will be dedicated to Him for all of eternity future. He will have created 'people,' by the billions, but only a comparative few will have earned His respect and His Love. Only those few will ever be in His presence. Only those who make a conscious decision to Love God will be allowed to join Him for eternity. Every human being has to make a choice based on our free will, while enduring life's pressures from all the temptations Satan tempted us with in our lifetime.
If you were God, wouldn't you prefer to spend eternity with loving creatures, fearfully and wonderfully made, who will Love you unconditionally forever?
If we are but a vapor that soon dissipates into the ether, what will certainly remain is an enormous composite of God's Love! That is, if we have the Love of God in our hearts!
Maybe that's why God created us. Maybe that's our purpose in life. To love others and convince others of the power of God's Grace that insures that they too can be with us.