Tag: love

Posted in theology

I love you ladies!

Posted on by elizabethprata

By Elizabeth Prata

I was sitting here this early Saturday morning, thinking of the women who read The End Time Facebook page, my Twitter, the blog, and listen to the podcast. I thought about the comments and encouragements I’ve received lately. I recalled the prayers lifted up for me this week and all the previous weeks. Such kindness.

I thought about how happy it makes me when a sister messages me that they have tried out a book I recommended or a course at ICL or Ligonier, and enjoyed it. THAT is the biggest thrill, when I point sisters to credible ministries and it’s actually pursued. SOOO encouraging.

We really do have a global church, and the sisters who follow, comment, and engage with The End Time are extremely precious to me.

I wanted to let you all know my favorite time of the week, (after church services). I get up early on Saturdays, make coffee, and put on Pandora String Quartets or Mozart channel, softly. I crack my knuckles, hover my hands over the keyboard, take a deep breath, and begin to write. I spend all morning till about noon, writing the blogs for the week. I do them all at once so they are ready to post in the mornings before I go to work.

I truly love this time writing. It’s personally satisfying for me to be able to process my thoughts by scribing them onto paper, or these days, a screen. It’s the way I’d always figured out stuff; think, then write, then think some more.

After salvation, transferring this process to where I strive to understand the Bible more or Jesus more, is deeply fulfilling. And the ministry of doing so for like-minded ladies is personally rewarding.

I really do love your questions, they prompt me to pursue deeper answers. I love the engagement and encouragement, it prompts me to do the same for others. I don’t get tired of it. I think of how Jesus hung on the cross for me, a sinner, and absorbed all God’s wrath to the dregs, for me, it spurs me on to want to be busy for Him, proclaiming His excellencies. When a sister comes to me in life or online and says something that I wrote (thanks to the wisdom of the Spirit) helped them, I just about fall over in gratitude. There is nothing and no one better than Jesus, and learning that other women are growing closer to Him and that I might have been a part is a profoundly gratifying feeling.

I do it because I love Jesus and love you sisters in Jesus.

Posted in theology

God’s love is…

Posted on by elizabethprata

By Elizabeth Prata

“When Moses came down from Mount Sinai, with the two tablets of the testimony in his hand as he came down from the mountain, Moses did not know that the skin of his face shone because he had been talking with God. Aaron and all the people of Israel saw Moses, and behold, the skin of his face shone, and they were afraid to come near him.” (Exodus 34:29-30).

His perfection and holiness puts fear into us. That is because we recognize how depraved and evil we are.

Isaiah saw immediately how depraved he was, when confronted by the holiness of God. “And I said: “Woe is me! For I am lost; for I am a man of unclean lips, and I dwell in the midst of a people of unclean lips; for my eyes have seen the King, the LORD of hosts!” (Isaiah 6:5).

The delusion satan brings is that we are good, we are innocent, we are pure. Or, at least to the slightly more honest among us, we’re not so bad.  “We’re not like HIM” our minds cry out when we discover that our neighbor was an embezzler. We use each other as a benchmark of progress in the goodness department, when the true standard is God. Our minds want to shrink from using Him as a benchmark because deep down we know what we are:

“The Lord saw that the wickedness of man was great in the earth, and that every intention of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually.” (Genesis 6:5).

Do you see how complete that statement is, “so great”, “every intention”, “continually”? We are saturated with sin, permeated down to the last molecule. Paul Washer is right when he preaches on the depravity of man, “All men are born evil.”

Paul Washer is right to say that God’s restraining power upon Hitler was restrained from worse. The restrainer is holding back the full potential of sin in the human heart, and so we enjoy His common grace. But once the restrainer is out of the way,

“Only he who now restrains it will do so until he is out of the way. And then the lawless one will be revealed, … The coming of the lawless one is by the activity of Satan with all power and false signs and wonders…” (2 Thessalonians 2:7b, 8a, 9).

In other words, watch out! ‘Satan with all power’. Everyone on earth except those who believe in Jesus after the rapture will make Hitler look like a choirboy. God’s common grace will have been removed- which will reveal the undeniable fact that everyone is not just a Hitler, but is an antichrist.

Once we understand this, the shock shifts. We are no longer shocked by the Nazi man puttering in his garden, because we see ourselves as having the same potential. The shock is, GOD LOVES US ANYWAY.

We can have a higher and deeper awe and love for Holy God because he loved each and every little Hitler on earth who was to be saved. Our precious Jesus died and shed His blood to save us who would believe!

“but God shows his love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us.” (Romans 5:8).

Posted in theology

The Love of Jesus is…

Posted on by elizabethprata

By Elizabeth Prata

The love of Jesus for His children is

–particular to each of us
–unconditional
–sacrificial.

I looked over my notes from a sermon one my elders gave in 2013. He’d preached from the main text of 1 John 3:1 as the overall opening, then made the three points above.

See how great a love the Father has given us, that we would be called children of God; and in fact we are. For this reason the world does not know us: because it did not know Him.

He used the verse as the example of the perfect Father-child relationship. Then he went on to some verses to show He loves each of us particularly for adoption as His children-

Ephesians 3:18-19, particular love (white-hot)

may be able to comprehend with all the saints what is the breadth and length and height and depth, and to know the love of Christ which surpasses knowledge, that you may be filled up to all the fullness of God.

He began with an anecdote; which I’ll paraphrase-

‘If my wife and I had the opportunity to go to an orphanage and choose a child to adopt, I think that would be pretty cool. If you’re looking over the kids, you’d have to be honest and say that you’d kind of want a likeable one. I mean, you’d look for one that was kind of nice or kind of cute or sort of smart, in other words, had something going for him.’

‘But if you think of looking at the “orphanage of humanity” in truth we are all oozing with hostility toward our potential Father. We are dirty and unintelligent and mean and hostile. We’d all be the smart alecks, and we’d have nothing going for us. Yet God chose us anyway.’

He went on to point two, unconditional love

Romans 8:21-25

that the creation itself will be set free from its bondage to corruption and obtain the freedom of the glory of the children of God. 22For we know that the whole creation has been groaning together in the pains of childbirth until now. 23And not only the creation, but we ourselves, who have the firstfruits of the Spirit, groan inwardly as we wait eagerly for adoption as sons, the redemption of our bodies. 24For in this hope we were saved. Now hope that is seen is not hope. For who hopes for what he sees? 25But if we hope for what we do not see, we wait for it with patience.

He said that there are no conditions on Jesus’s love for us. It’s not like if we have a lengthier quiet time, that He loves us more, of if we forgot to pray, He loves us less. It’s about what we believe, not what we do. He simply loves us. He loves us perfectly, too.

Point three, sacrificial love:

John 13:1

Now before the Feast of the Passover, Jesus, knowing that His hour had come that He would depart from this world to the Father, having loved His own who were in the world, He loved them to the end.

He reminded us of the foot washing and the humble service Jesus gave to His disciples and the people. Jesus loved His children to the very end- through torture and through death and through the resurrection and will love us to the end of time when time will never end.

I’d posted about fearing God the other day, now today we looked at the love of God. He has many attributes we can ponder. His love for us is permanent to those who confess and believe unto His Son, and it will never end. No matter what is going on in your life, bask in that truth. May it sustain you through good days and hard days.

Posted in theology

God’s amazing love

Posted on by elizabethprata

By Elizabeth Prata

“There is no point at which God began. Before God ever made a world, He already existed. And the Scriptures make clear that as He existed from all eternity, there was already in His nature from all eternity the attribute of love. God didn’t become loving at the time of creation, for He has always been a God of love.” ~RC Sproul, The Eternal Love of God

I think of the moving story in the Bible about the Prodigal Son. His arrogance in asking for his inheritance before the Father had died, demonstrating where his heart was…leaving to pursue sin with glee and abandon. His realization that he was in fact worse off than the pigs without the Father, his coming back, resolved to be a lowly servant…the Father running toward His son, who He loves!

It’s me. I wandered in the muck of sin for 4 decades before in His timing, the Father plucked me up. He loved me through all that time, my sin and rebellion he loved me through the ages before I was born. He loved me in infinity before the foundation of the world.

His love is tremendous, expansive, unplumbable to the ends.

Would you love a pig of a person who spit on you and hated your guts? Would you wash him, invite him to your home, a mansion, feed you and take care of your every need? Of course we would not. We don’t. But God does. BUT GOD.

The Nature of God’s Love by AW Pink

It is eternal. This [is] of necessity. God Himself is eternal, and God is love; therefore, as God Himself had no beginning, His love had none. Granted that such a concept far transcends the grasp of our finite minds, nevertheless, where we cannot comprehend, we can bow in adoring worship. How clear is the testimony of Jeremiah 31:3, “I have loved thee with an everlasting love: therefore with lovingkindness have I drawn thee.”

How blessed to know that the great and holy God loved His people before heaven and earth were called into existence, that He had set His heart upon them from all eternity. This is clear proof that His love is spontaneous, for He loved them endless ages before they had any being.

The same precious truth is set forth in Ephesians 1:4-5, “According as he hath chosen us in him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and without blame before him in love: Having predestinated us.” What praise should this evoke from each of His children! How quieting for the heart. Since God’s love toward me had no beginning, it can have no ending! Since it is true that “from everlasting to everlasting” He is God, and since God is love, then it is equally true that “from everlasting to everlasting” He loves His people.

LOVE ETERNAL AND UNCHANGEABLE

By Thomas Reade (1776-1841)
GOD is love (1Jo 4:8)! Sweet truth! O my soul, rejoice daily in this blessed revelation, “God is love.” Before all worlds, before any being was formed, “God is love”—love eternal and unchangeable. He is the same yesterday, today, and forever. He is love. How inconceivably great is the love of God! All worlds rolling in the infinite expanse, all beings inhabiting those innumerable spheres, which extend far beyond the boundaries of the most excursive imagination, all the myriads of angelic spirits which dwell forever in the bright effulgence of uncreated light, are only the overflowings of that love, which is inexhaustible. The immense fountain loses not one drop, though countless millions are filled by its streams. It is ever flowing, ever full. “Lord, Thou art love. Oh, fill my soul with Thy love! Thou canst not be diminished, and I shall be made everlastingly blessed.”

By this the love of God was revealed in us, that God has sent His only Son into the world so that we may live through Him. In this is love, not that we loved God, but that He loved us and sent His Son to be the propitiation for our sins. Beloved, if God so loved us, we also ought to love one another. (1 John 4:9-11).

That is just one of many verses in the Bible about the deep and eternal love God has for His people. No matter where you are or what us happening to you, know that if you are a believer, you are loved by God, deeply, thoroughly, eternally.

and I give them eternal life, and they will never perish; and no one will snatch them out of My hand (John 10:28).

EPrata photo

Posted in olivet discourse, prophecy, spurgeon, tribulation

Has your love for Christ gone cold?

Posted on by elizabethprata

What word in the New Testament is used only once, in Matthew 24:12?

First, the scene.

“Olive Trees”, Vincent Van Gogh

The disciples had asked Jesus about the Temple, the times, and when His return would be. His answer is the longest discourse in the NT after the Sermon on the Mount, and the longest answer to any question the disciples asked. It comprises the entire chapters of Matthew 24 and goes on to Matthew 25. The response, given on the Mount of Olives and thus known as the Olivet Discourse, is about the Tribulation period. The Time of Jacob’s Trouble, when Jesus pours out His wrath on the unbelieving world, and punishes Israel for the final 7 years of time, three and a half of which are called the Great Tribulation. (Revelation 12:14, Daniel 7:25; Daniel 12:7).

Continue reading “Has your love for Christ gone cold?” →
Posted in thankful, theology

There is no love like that of Christ to and through His people

Posted on by elizabethprata

By Elizabeth Prata

One of my elders told me about a Jerry Bridges book that impacted him a lot, God Took Me by the Hand, so since I trust my elder greatly, I immediately put that book on my Amazon wish list. Then, a kind sister bought it for me, and it came today! Also came with it was The Glory of Grace: An Introduction to the Puritans in Their Own Words by Lewis Allen & Tim Chester. Continue reading “There is no love like that of Christ to and through His people” →

Posted in encouragement, theology

Let’s love each other

Posted on by elizabethprata

By Elizabeth Prata

I found this online. It’s a list that is sourced. Recently I’ve been a bit downcast by the in-fighting on social media. I guess after 24 years online going from BBS forums to CompuServe to commenting online newspapers to Disqus to blogs to Facebook to Twitter … I’m finally social media world-weary with the lack of grace and patience. Let’s love each other.

love verse 4

The 59 “One Anothers” of the New Testament

1. …Be at peace with each other. (Mark 9:50)

2. …Wash one another’s feet. (John 13:14)

3. …Love one another… (John 13:34a)

4. …Love one another… (John 13:34b)

5. …Love one another… (John 13:35)

6. …Love one another… (John 15:12)

7. …Love one another (John 15:17)

8. Be devoted to one another in brotherly love… (Romans 12:10)

9. …Honor one another above yourselves. (Romans 12:10)

10. Live in harmony with one another… (Romans 12:16)

11. …Love one another… (Romans 13:8)

12. …Stop passing judgment on one another. (Romans 14:13)

13. Accept one another, then, just as Christ accepted you… (Romans 15:7)

14. …Instruct one another. (Romans 15:14)

15. Greet one another with a holy kiss… (Romans 16:16)

16. …When you come together to eat, wait for each other. (I Cor. 11:33)

17. …Have equal concern for each other. (I Corinthians 12:25)

18. …Greet one another with a holy kiss. (I Corinthians 16:20)

19. Greet one another with a holy kiss. (II Corinthians 13:12)

20. …Serve one another in love. (Galatians 5:13)

21. If you keep on biting and devouring each other…you will be destroyed by each other.

(Galatians 5:15)

22. Let us not become conceited, provoking and envying each other. (Galatians 5:26)

23. Carry each other’s burdens… (Galatians 6:2)

24. …Be patient, bearing with one another in love. (Ephesians 4:2)

25. Be kind and compassionate to one another… (Ephesians 4:32)

26. …Forgiving each other… (Ephesians 4:32)

27. Speak to one another with psalms, hymns and spiritual songs. (Ephesians 5:19)

28. Submit to one another out of reverence for Christ. (Ephesians 5:21)

29. …In humility consider others better than yourselves. (Philippians 2:3)

30. Do not lie to each other… (Colossians 3:9)

31. Bear with each other… (Colossians 3:13)

32. …Forgive whatever grievances you may have against one another. (Colossians 3:13)

33. Teach…[one another] (Colossians 3:16)

34. …Admonish one another (Colossians 3:16)

35. …Make your love increase and overflow for each other. (I Thessalonians 3:12)

36. …Love each other. (I Thessalonians 4:9)

37. …Encourage each other…(I Thessalonians 4:18)

38. …Encourage each other… I Thessalonians 5:11)

39. …Build each other up… (I Thessalonians 5:11)

40. Encourage one another daily… Hebrews 3:13)

41. …Spur one another on toward love and good deeds. (Hebrews 10:24)

42. …Encourage one another. (Hebrews 10:25)

43. …Do not slander one another. (James 4:11)

44. Don’t grumble against each other… (James 5:9)

45. Confess your sins to each other… (James 5:16)

46. …Pray for each other. (James 5:16)

47. …Love one another deeply, from the heart. (I Peter 3:8)

48. …Live in harmony with one another… (I Peter 3:8)

49. …Love each other deeply… (I Peter 4:8)

50. Offer hospitality to one another without grumbling. (I Peter 4:9)

51. Each one should use whatever gift he has received to serve others… (I Peter 4:10)

52. …Clothe yourselves with humility toward one another…(I Peter 5:5)

53. Greet one another with a kiss of love. (I Peter 5:14)

54. …Love one another. (I John 3:11)

55. …Love one another. (I John 3:23)

56. …Love one another. (I John 4:7)

57. …Love one another. (I John 4:11)

58. …Love one another. (I John 4:12)

59. …Love one another. (II John 5)

*From Carl F. George, Prepare Your Church for the Future (Tarrytown: Revell, 1991), 129-131.

Posted in discernment, theology

Are you drifting toward only wanting your ears tickled?

Posted on by elizabethprata

By Elizabeth Prata

This essay first appeared on The End Time in November 2010.

“For the time will come when they will not endure sound doctrine; but wanting to have their ears tickled, they will accumulate for themselves teachers in accordance to their own desires…” (2 Timothy 4:3)

Do you notice that word “endure”? The verse does not say “they will not like sound doctrine…” It does not say “they will not enjoy sound doctrine…” It doesn’t even say “they will not accept sound doctrine.” It uses the word endure. When you endure something, you writhe. You wish you were not there in the midst of it. If anyone has ever undergone physical therapy, you know that you have to endure it but if you could you would shoot out of the gym so fast you’d be like a speeding bullet. If anyone has ever had to get a root canal, you know that you endure it. You do not seek it, you do not like it, and if you could, you go away from it.

That is the process by which lukewarm Christians, fake Christians, and unholy pastors feel about the true Gospel of Jesus Christ. To be sure, the true Gospel of the Risen Savior is full of warm fuzzies. He loves us. (John 13:1). He prospers us. (2 Corinthians 9:8). He sends angels to us. (Hebrews 1:14). But the True Gospel is also full of truth, the unpalatable truth that the iniquitous lawless cannot endure: we are sinners. (Psalm 51:5). Rejection of the remedy for your sin (1 Corinthians 6:9-10) means you will spend eternity in torment, apart from God. That there is nothing good in us. (Mark 10:18). That we are fallen, craven, and deserve judgment. No, they will not endure that. So they don’t.

Instead they seek teachers to tempt us with what the devil has always tempted us with, and tempted Jesus too: health, wealth, fame. (Luke 4:1-13). They may find it in some “preachers” and in some “churches”, but it is for a season. Hebrews 11:25). Most do not find prosperity in health, wealth and fame. The only ones becoming famous and rich are the false pastors who urge the hapless and desperate to send money.

In his series, “Toxic Television: Unmasking the Prosperity Gospel part 1” Bible teacher John MacArthur spends a few minutes below of his one-hour sermon (linked above) explaining why Joel Osteen is false, dangerous, and unholy. He also spends time explaining why the Trinity Broadcast Network is also false, dangerous and unholy. MacArthur says, Osteen “is a quasi-pantheist where Jesus is a footnote that satisfies his critics and deceives his followers.” As for Osteen’s book, MacArthur says ‘Your Best Life Now’, the title, is a dead giveaway. The only way you can have your best life now is if you’re going to hell.”

Toxic Television: Unmasking the Prosperity Gospel part 1

A watered down gospel removes the book-end to the parts that they seek love and only ‘love’. The missing book-end is judgment. They will not endure sound teaching of His holiness involving love but also including righteous judgment.

“I have sworn by Myself,
The word has gone forth from My mouth in righteousness
And will not turn back,
That to Me every knee will bow, every tongue will swear allegiance.
“They will say of Me, ‘Only in the LORD are righteousness and strength.’
Men will come to Him,
And all who were angry at Him will be put to shame. (Isaiah 45:23-24)

A watered down gospel that removes the other book-end is less filling but it tastes great. The Bible shows us that the True Gospel tastes great, and also the watered down false Gospel tastes great. In the verses telling us of Ezekiel’s commission,

“Then He said to me, “Son of man, eat what you find; eat this scroll, and go, speak to the house of Israel.” So I opened my mouth, and He fed me this scroll. He said to me, “Son of man, feed your stomach and fill your body with this scroll which I am giving you.” Then I ate it, and it was sweet as honey in my mouth.” (Ez 3:1-3).

The true word absorbed by submissive believers is sweet. But it is also sometimes accompanied by a bitterness felt by even the most beloved of followers, even the most obedient of disciples. Sometimes the true word is hard to hear and bitter even for believers, because it reveals to us the true state of our sinfulness, our sorrow over our sin, and the fate of those who refuse His hand, those mockers and scorners whom we mourn over-

“I took the little scroll from the angel’s hand and ate it. It tasted as sweet as honey in my mouth, but when I had eaten it, my stomach turned sour.” (Rev 10:10)

The only way to endure the knowledge of judgment that is coming is to rest on His truth and His promises. Those who do not rest in that truth, bitter as it sometimes is, do not endure it. Not only have they stopped asking the Spirit for wisdom, but they simply stop ingesting the sweet Words of the LORD and they flee away, being unstable in all they do.

“But if any of you lacks wisdom, let him ask of God, who gives to all generously and without reproach, and it will be given to him. But he must ask in faith without any doubting, for the one who doubts is like the surf of the sea, driven and tossed by the wind. For that man ought not to expect that he will receive anything from the Lord, being a double-minded man, unstable in all his ways.” (James 1:5-8)

But we do endure! Paul said to in 2 Tim 2:3, 10. Peter said to in 1 Peter 2:20. The writer in Hebrews 12:7 advised us to endure. Endure what? Hardship. Beatings. Wrongdoing. Life. Hardship. Persecution. And there are those today who cannot sit still in a chair or a pew and ‘endure’ the Word of the Living God who loves them. They seek tickling instead. They are gaining the world only to lose their lives forever.

Has solid preaching become an endurance test for you? Or are the hard but truthful words uplifting to you and filling in every way? If you have recently changed churches because the pastor is “a little too Bible thumping for my taste”, or have drifted away from regular worship lately because the sermons are too long, too convicting, or demand endurance on the part of your deceitful heart, then ask yourself if you are really just trying to accumulate a teacher in accordance with your own desires, and are wanting your ears tickled with a less filling but great tasting sermon. If so, you may be at risk.

Why at risk? Because we all live forever in eternity in one of two places. The day will come when the eternity you are beginning will either not have the word endure associated with it, which is heaven, or it will have the word endure associated with it, for an eternity!

You may try to avoid enduring a convicting sermon from a ticklish teacher today, but the end result will be that you will have to endure an eternity separated from Him in torment. O, faithful one, let it not be so!

 

Posted in theology, word of the week

Word of the Week: Love

Posted on by elizabethprata

By Elizabeth Prata

On Sundays I had posted a theological word with its definition, then an explanation, and used it in a verse. I also use a picture to represent the concept. This is my effort to maintain a theological literacy among the brethren and between generations, something I believe is critical. We have to know what we believe, why, and know the words to express it. Words like Justification, Immanence, and Perspicuity have all been a Sunday Word of the Week. I am reposting this series on Sundays. This post first appeared on The End Time in October 2018.

wordcloud

Similarly, when we discuss other words such as love, peace, and joy, we think we know what they mean, but often times these culturally embedded words have a totally different flavor when used from a biblical context. It is true of the words pertaining to the Fruit of the Spirit. Even these ‘simpler’ biblical words are misunderstood.

Therefore, over the next 9 weeks the Word of the Week will be one of the 9 Fruit of the Spirit.

You notice the fruit is singular. The Holy Spirit develops fruit, not fruits. Believers can and do manifest all its elements simultaneously. The nine representative qualities refer to the whole work of the Spirit’s sanctifying labor in the believer. One doesn’t work on patience today and then love tomorrow and then joy, etc. The fruit is one fruit with various characteristics.

Paul began with identifying love as the first fruit of the Spirit. Jesus said that love is the greatest commandment.

Love in the biblical context doesn’t mean what it means in the songs. The culture says we are always falling in and out of love (Pure Prairie League, Amie), as if love was a tide we had no control over and washes in and out. Whitesnake wanted to know Is This Love? They weren’t sure. Foreigner famously pleaded with the universe, that I Want to Know What Love Is.

Love addles people. Romance is mistaken for love. So is lust. The world thinks it knows love as an external thing that comes upon people who must grab it and plead for it not to go away. As if it can dissipate like steam. But that is not what love is according to the Bible.

I found the section from the MacArthur/Mayhue systematic theology book Biblical Doctrine helpful and illuminating here. The section on the Fruit of the Spirit of love reads as follows:

Christ’s substitutionary death provided the ultimate example of love. (Greek: agape). He said, “Greater love has no one than this, that someone lay down his life for his friends.” (John 15:13). Paul called for this supreme love to be characteristic of a husband’s love for his wife: “Husbands, love your wives as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her.” (Ephesians 5:25). First Corinthians 13:8 promises that “love never fails.” (NASB).

Thus, love is a communicable, divine attribute that is central to the Father’s character, (1 John 4:8), put on display by Christ at the cross, enabled in believers by the Holy Spirit. Love can be defined broadly as the conscious, sacrificial, and volitional commitment to the welfare of another person, in obedience to God’s Word (2 John 6), regardless of the person’s response or what one does or does not receive from him or her, or what love costs one to give. The love of Christians toward other Christians (Colossians 1:8), as might be expected, is the most commended “one another” response in the New Testament.

That’s what love is.

Posted in cross, theology

The cross is the greatest spectacle there ever was or will be

Posted on by elizabethprata

By Elizabeth Prata

Tony Reinke’s last chapters of Competing Spectacles so moved me I designed this picture to stare at and better ponder its truths. The mental picture of it was so vivid before my eyes I had to draw it out.

Initially I drew just the wavy line and the cross. The cross is lifted up, the sole item on the bloody landscape. To view it, all eyes must look UP. The cross of Christ is the only thing has any meaning in the world. When I was an unsaved person I rejected this notion immediately. As a saved person, by the grace of God, I am humbled to kneel and stare at this wonderful, terrible cross.

The line represents not only the hill, for the Son of Man must be lifted up, and it was a hill He died on and a hill he will return to.

The line is also the dividing line of all human history. The above and below, the hell and the heaven, the line that divides before Christ’s birth and after Christ’s incarnation and is both the starting point and the ending point of all that is and all that will be.

“Christ’s victory is the spectacle that holds the attention of the universe.” ~Tony Reinke, Competing Spectacles

Christ’s glory is the spectacle of all spectacles, and its power is most clearly seen in how it equips and motivates and animates our faithful obedience in all other areas of life.

Christ was not merely made a spectacle on the cross, the cross became a shorthand reference for everything glorious about Christ- His work as creator and sustainer of all things, his incarnation, his life, his words, his obedience, his miracles, his shunning, his beatings, his crucifixion, his wrath bearing, his resurrection from the grave, his heavenly ascension, his kingly coronation, and his eternal priesthood- all of his glory subsumed into his heavenly spectacle. ~Tony Reinke, Competing Spectacles

To be able to love Jesus and not hate Him any longer is the joy of my life.

We love because he first loved us. (1 John 4:19)