What if we've got it all wrong? 2

So, I asked myself and the Lord, what I needed to focus on to make myself ready for Him. One of the main things He focused on was love... both His love and mine. He showed me that I often looked on His love very shallowly and hadn't spent much time really thinking about it and what it meant and how His love for us really has a bearing on just about every question we tend to ask Him. He took me on a journey through His life here and especially His last 24 hours here and how that showed us His love for us. We tend to think of love as a sentimental feeling, but it's really a choice; a decision and commitment.

I'm not sure I can show anyone else what He showed me, but I do know that He can show you if you study the those last 24 hours in the gospels. I will share one of the things that really impressed me though. Remember when He was praying in the garden and how he began to sweat blood? (Luke 22:40–46) (Matt. 26:36–46; Mark 14:32–42) I always wondered why that happened, and while I learned the "why" a few years ago, I guess it's something that I just didn't think about a lot afterward. It was just so deep, so emotional, that it was difficult to spend time thinking about it, I guess. Well, that's one place the Lord took me.

Our Lord was so upset that night, that no human could comfort Him, so the Lord sent an angel to comfort and strengthen Him. (Luke 22:41–43), But even that didn't help. (Luke 22:44) That's when He fell to the ground (Matthew 26:36; Mark 14:35) and asked the Father to let this cup pass from Him. We can read His prayer in Matthew 26:39 and Mark 14:36, and Mark 14:37 tells us that He prayed like this for an hour. It wasn't just a short little prayer. He was pouring out His anguish to the Father. It was now that we're told that His sweat was like great drops of blood in Luke 22:44. In the gospels we're told what His condition was. It's described as grieved, alarmed, very troubled, and deeply distressed. I know when I first read He felt this way, my first response was to think, well then He really does know how we feel at times. But none of us have ever felt this extreme distress. Let me share something from one of my commentaries about this:

[QUOTE]Medical science has attested a very few isolated cases of people sweating blood (a phenomenon called hemato hydrosis) and in every instance the person was in extreme mental and emotional anguish; in each case the individual died in a matter of hours. It seems that Christ also suffered this extreme mental and emotional agony, but He alone survived it. Mills, M. S. (1999). The Life of Christ: A Study Guide to the Gospel Record [/QUOTE]

I checked this out online and found that while there have been a few cases reported where the people survived, it's always called "very rare" and in all of these cases, the people were only sweating blood from a small area of their body, not from their entire body like Jesus did. They also confirmed that extreme stress was always present in those people's lives.

We know that Jesus is God and He knew what was going to happen to Him. I honestly can't even imagine it though. It's not like one of us, who has sinned all through our lives was going to have all the sins of the world put on us... although that admittedly would be pretty horrible to think about. But instead, Jesus, who had never sinned- this totally pure man who had never been touched by the stain of sin, never felt it's awful grip, was going to have every sin placed on Him. Just reflecting on this aspect of what He knew He'd be going though for us is too much for me to imagine. Add to that the incredible physical suffering He had to know He'd also go through and I already cannot understand how anyone could love me enough to do that! Yet even that wasn't all of it!

In Matthew 26:38 we're told He was experiencing an anguish of the soul. Being God, Jesus knew better then anyone what the sentence of sin was- eternal separation from the Father. This is another part that's impossible for us to understand, but we can try. Jesus had been One with the Father and the Holy Spirit since before the beginning of time. There was never a second that He wasn't One with them and their love. Yet now on top of everything else, He was facing being separated from them, and perhaps even forever! I'd say that was a pretty good reason to ask the Father to let this cup pass from Him and to be so upset, don't you?

And yet, He didn't run; He didn't hide; He didn't call down legions of Angels to rescue Him, and He could have! He did NOT have to go through all this! He faced all that (Matthew 27:46) for me. For you. Because He loves us so very much. I can't even write about it without sobbing. I can't imagine loving anyone that much, can you? Yes, I think I might give my life for one of my children or grandchildren - but then even doing that, I wouldn't be going through a tenth of what the Lord went through for us!

Even all of that isn't all though. During all this time, and during the time when the Lord was actually going through with this, who was He most concerned for? For His disciples, even though He knew, KNEW, that they'd desert Him! He still asked the guards to let them go and just take Him. He even showed love for those arresting Him when He healed that mans ear, and even for Judas when He betrayed Him! His heart ached for them! On the cross, instead of focusing on His own suffering, He took the time to be sure that the thief would be saved. He could have ignored Him, but He didn't. He made sure His earthly mother was cared for too, thinking of her, while enduring such enormous physical, emotional and spiritual suffering! And you know who else He thought of? Me! You! After all, that's why He was there. It was our sins that put Him there, and it was our sins that kept Him there till the bitter end, so we could be with Him forever.

After showing me more about His love and how He showed us the way to truly love, and how different that is from the worlds idea of love, He took me to Revelation and the 7 letters to the churches.  I hope I haven't bored you all to death, but trying to understand His love for us and just how much He actually did for us, is important to the rest.

For just a second let's remember what the first 2 things He showed me were.. First, that very few people are really saved. Like in Matthew 7:13–14 where He tells us that few find the narrow road that leads to life. He showed me how He always told everyone the whole gospel, that there was a cost to be paid by us and that we should count it before we decide we want to follow Him. He never made it sound like He was offering people an easy life here and eternity in heaven afterwards -though to talk to many people today, that's what most seem to think. Instead He said we're to die to ourselves.

Then He had me focus on His love for us and all He did for us. I know I didn't go into it, but He also showed me all He's continued to do for us as well, such as blessing us with every spiritual blessing, not just some of them, and so on. And as I said before, how different it was from the worlds idea of love. Part of sharing His love with me, He shared too how much He longs for us- each of us. That's another thing we rarely hear about or think about, but He does. He longs to have an intimate relationship with us, to spend time with us, to have us know Him, know His heart, to seek His face and not just His hand; He longs to protect us, help us, guide us, show us His love, and yet like Israel when He was here, we often simply don't allow it. And He longs for the day when He will be with us again, and present us Holy and perfect, for then we will be ready for the wedding.

Our next trip was through the letters to the churches in Revelation. I'm sure you all remember them, but let me post a link to part of the first one so you can read it: Revelation 2:2–6.
Probably the most important thing to remember about these letters is that they're being written to Christians, not to the unsaved.

And then I'll come back tomorrow and talk about it.