Listening to the song “Awsome God” on the radio today for the thousandth time my attention was caught by the line
Judgement and wrath you poured out on Sodom; mercy and grace you gave us at the cross. I’m hoping we have not too quickly forgotten that our God is an awsome God.
Indeed, we rightly teach the love and forgiveness of Christ and yet often forget what we were forgiven from. When we lose sight of God’s wrath, his righteous judgement we lose sight of our own sinfulness and its eternal consequences. To think that we are no less sinners than the people who lived in Sodom, for we have all gone our own way and rejected God. Should we not still tremble before his righteousness?
If we do not tremble before God, we will certainly find something else to tremble before (and by its very nature of being something else it will be sin). It is an innate human desire to be overcome by the awsomeness of something greater.
My brother Ben, the philosophically capable coffee blogger, likes to use the illustration of standing on a cliff watching the waves crash into the rocks. It’s raw power–beautiful power–and we love to be overcome by it.
This is a created need. We were made to abide in God. We were made to be overcome by his awsomeness. By sinning and desiring that which is finite, we condemn ourselves to nothingness. We are condemned to a life of mediocrity which does not begin to fulfill.
How we would change our perspective on life if we grasped the greatness of the cross. If we were overcome by the shear weight of the concept of Eternal God, maker of all spirit, and life, and nature, becoming man and conquering death itself.
What an amazing life of godly thrill is given in taking life as a leap, in being overcome by all the life and freedom that is in Christ and not being afraid to step out and watch his power work.
But no, we recieve this gift, this free ticket to a life-long skydive, and we choose to remain in our addiction to mediocridty. We do the cultural things; we “set our goals,” only puffs of dust confined within the narrow constraints of career, car, house, and stuff. They’re not goals, they’re cultural chains.
Why are we afraid? In I John 4:18 John says that there is no fear in love. Ah, love. Yes, we do not love, I should have guessed. It usually comes back to that. We don’t want to be what God is because…it’s not easy. And of course we always want what’s easy, what’s mediocre.
If we truly loved we would not fear to lose, for in love all is already lost. If we live the life of the cross we would know that all that is of this earth is already given up so that we may live the ressurection; an eternal giving of life.
If we lived in this way we would certainly experience the thrill of Christ. We would know what it means to float over 20,000 fathoms of water.
It’s like sky-diving. I went last summer. I jumped out of and airplane two miles above the ground. The trick is, I was strapped to a man who had jumped over 3,000 times.
Hasn’t Christ already taken this leap? Didn’t he give up family and friends on this earth? Wasn’t he tempted in every way as we have been, including the temptation to accumulate wealth and be prosperous on this earth? Did he not give it all up for the prize that was set before him? We are in him, we abide in his love; where is the fear?
You see, we are his prize. From the beginning of creation God’s desire has been to commune with you. He has wanted to overpower you with his awsomeness so that you can only rest transpartently in him.
So now see that the greatest prize is found in the leap. We let go of all that we hold close for comfort or security and give it up for those around us. Not us, but Christ in us. In this way we reicieve what can only be given and never taken; we recieve the gift of eternal giving in the body of Christ. We recieve that true love that only flows through us as we are overpowered by Christ.
We don’t always feel it; we are in this finite flesh. But Jesus beat Satan with Satan’s own weapon. He took that flesh which so easily besets us, and he sacrificed it. He broke it and poured out the blood in him that we go to such lengths to save in ourselves. It doesn’t always feel like a thrill, that’s why it’s called faith.
The waves may look like death, but no, it is the Easter tide! They are waves of mercy, eternal life! So don’t just stand there at the edge of the cliff looking at them, jump!
Nathanael Szobody on