Jesus Christ is Lord of All

Sunday, October 30, 2011

The King of Love has Scorned our Shame

Our Shame has Been Scorned



Let us fix our eyes on Jesus, the Author and Perfecter of our faith, who for the joy set before Him endured the cross, scorning its shame, and sat down at the right hand of the throne of God. Hebrews 12:2

       As our hearts had continued in rebellion, we had been storing up the wrath of the Father towards us. As we broke His Covenant of love, we realized that we were bare and uncovered. We were ashamed. His Law is written on our hearts and in the torrent of spiritual distress that rushed in after our wicked deeds we felt shame. We were worthy of only disgrace. There was a shroud of darkness within and around us that blurred our vision. 

     Our glory had fell. We were meant to glory in Him...in His glory. Yet the exaltation of ourselves in our flesh set itself up against the One whom were were meant to glory in: The Lord, the Great I AM. We took the fairest purpose of our manhood and womanhood and discarded it for the counterfeit deception: self idolatry. We lived only for pleasure. As were arose in the morning our waking moments were filled with contemplating the work of our hands and as we rested our heads, we imagined earthly pleasures and the splendor of our flesh. We were Pagan rebels. We had sold our birthright for a bowl of soup. 

     The only disposition left for our hearts to bear was SHAME. As we awoke to our damning plight of being covered in shame, we would have been destroyed completely. 

You will be filled with shame instead of glory. Now it is your turn! Drink and be exposed ! The cup from the LORD’s right hand is coming around to you, and disgrace will cover your glory. Hab 2:16

     Many of the wicked on earth even "loved their shameful ways", "gloried in their shame", "consecrated themselves to idols", and "knew no shame". Because of our shame, we could not minister or serve the Lord our God. Our sin had separated ourselves from Him. 

     We scorned our shame, that is, we thought against it, we utterly despised it. We had sought our own glory, but in the process, rather than acquiring His glory through worshiping Him, we had brought disaster upon ourselves. We had traded the Living God for our mortal selves in all their condemning carnality. Our deep despising and scorning of our own shame ultimately resulted in our undying fear of death. Day and night, we feared the Judge who would have destroyed us, us who had become like the unworthy idols that we worshiped. We were fit only to be trampled upon and thrown into the fires. Oh, how we despised our shame.

     But as Jesus poured out His Life unto death on the cross, He beheld the glory of the Father, the glory that would come to Him as God raised Him to Life and achieved Redemption for all His people through His sacrifice and resurrection. This was the joy set before Him: The Glorification of God and the Union with His people. 

     There on the cross, even as Jesus beheld this joy, He scorned the shame. Whose shame was this that He had scorned? Christ knew no sin and yet He became sin for us that we might become the righteousness of God in Him. In His perfection He was made the source of eternal Life for all who believe. He became the curse for us. By His stripes we are healed. Certainly this Perfect Lamb of God was sinless and spotless, holy and pure, in the eyes of the True Judge. 

     And yet He despised shame, not shame that came as a result from sin within Him. For He surely was perfect in every aspect and had resisted every temptation and arrow from the evil one. He despised our shame, yes, even the shame of the whole world. All of the shame for all of the sin that we have committed was placed on Him. He bore our sin and our shame. He despised this shame of mine and yours. He despised it to the utmost.

     The joy set before Him allowed Him to endure the cross. Now He is the Author and Perfecter of our faith. He is seated at the right hand of the Father in heaven. As we confess and repent of our sin, He has washed away our impurity. His fountain of cleansing is free for all who come. 

HE HAS SCORNED OUR SHAME SO THAT WE NEED NOT BEAR IT OR SCORN IT.

Rather, we have renounced secret and shameful ways; we do not use deception, nor do we distort the word of God. On the contrary, by setting forth the truth plainly we commend ourselves to every man’s conscience in the sight of God. 2 Cor 4:2

     His death and resurrection has achieved for us fine white garments of righteousness that cover and remove our shame. He enables us to see what we could not see before in the midst of our guilty confusion. We could walk in the Light, yes, even in the love of God for His people. Where there is no sin, there is no shame. And when we have sinned, He has despised the shame for us so that we need not bear it. 

I counsel you to buy from me gold refined in the fire, so you can become rich; and white clothes to wear, so you can cover your shameful nakedness; and salve to put on your eyes, so you can see. Rev 3:18

Thus His covenant stands firm. He has blotted out our sin.

“See, I lay a stone in Zion, a chosen and precious cornerstone, and the one who trusts in him will never be put to shame.” I Peter 2:6

The King of Love

     The King of Love has come. And now there is no difference between each child of the heavenly Father. We are glorified with Christ. There is no glory greater than His exalted glory. In the new Heaven and the new Earth, we will be united with Christ as His Bride. 

     This Bride has one heart. Her heart is completely devoted to her Lord Jesus Christ. Her heart is undivided. Her love is strong. Until the Day of the Lord is consummated, she bears His anguish. His grief is the grief of her heart. His joy in His glory is the joy that she sets before her. This joy prevents her from growing weary and losing heart. 

     The Bride has one soul. Her soul is guided by the Good Shepherd. She hears His voice. She runs away from the stranger because she does not recognize his voice. Every Spiritual revelation from the Father is shown to her and her soul rejoices in His Truth. Her soul hungers and thirsts for His righteousness. 

     The Bride has one mind. Each of us has been given the mind of Christ so that we can understand what God has freely given us. No eye has seen, no ear has heard, no mind has perceived what God has prepared for those who love Him, yet He reveals it to her by His Holy Spirit. She knows that her life is in Him, that apart from Him she has no good thing. She proclaims that Christ is Lord and believes that God has raised Him from the dead. 

     The Bride has one body. Each of us is filled with a deep and strong incomprehensible love for the other members of the bride. We would lay down our lives for one another. We would starve that you might be fed. We would thirst that you might drink. We would be imprisoned that you might go free. We would be bedridden that you might be healed. We are laboring and battling demons for your sake. We do not hold onto earthly money and materials but bestow them freely. We trust in Him. He never lets the righteous go hungry. We have seen His faithfulness time after time. We do not hold onto anything here on earth. Our body belongs to Him. Surely Christ is our Head.

     As we saw the members of our bride struggle and misunderstand, we may have been tempted to accuse and to criticize them. But He has revealed to us that He Himself is the King of Love who reveals His Truth to His people. He is zealous for His people. His heart longs for the complete devotion of His people and He is mighty and Sovereign.

The way He rescues the heart of His people is to reveal to them His love.

19 I will betroth you to me forever; 
   I will betroth you in righteousness and justice, 
   in love and compassion. 
20 I will betroth you in faithfulness, 
   and you will acknowledge the LORD. Hos 2

     He leads us "with cords of human kindness and ties of love". Surely it is "His kindness which leads us to repentance". In our accusation of the bride we had acquired more than a hint of pride. In this pride we had neglected the one thing that the Sovereign Lord uses to woo His bride: His love: the laying down of His Life for her. 

His "heart is changed within Him and all His compassion is aroused". "He heals our waywardness and loves us freely". 

     At other times we were tempted into hopelessness and despair at the imperfection and disunity of the bride. We almost questioned the promise of God to unify His people. We forget that it was HIS power that "enables Him to bring everything under His control". We tried to give birth to salvation in ourselves but we brought forth only wind. It was His own arm that worked salvation for her...in EVERY REALM. Surely He calls us to a patient loving humility on behalf of the saints. 

     Consider now your brother, your sister in Jesus Christ. One day he/she will be a glorified being. If you saw him/her in this state at this instant you would fall to your face in awestruck  fear. The flesh will have been destroyed and the soul saved. He/she will be worshiping God with unending joy and satisfaction in the love of the Father. He/she will be joining in the feast of the Lamb. You will become one entity with him/her and the rest of God's people. Indeed this is the final state of all believers. There is no difference between them. They are one. They are one. And they are raised to life and glorified in Christ. He calls for patient endurance and faithfulness on the part of the saints.

     If He captures our hearts with His love, would we be used by Him to love those who do not comprehend their glorious eternal destiny and God's righteous anguish for the present wickedness?

Or would we devour one another in prideful criticism? Our fruitfulness comes from Him.

     What will unify us as His people is a common experience with the Awesome King of Love. We may be from different countries, our cultures may be different, our social status may be different, our way of interacting may be different, our lifestyles may be different....but we both have been found by the Good Shepherd. We both have been loved by Him when we did not love Him. We have both seen His awesome forgiveness and mercy. We both have sat at the foot of the cross and wept before Him with tears of brokenness and joy. We both have been disciplined by Him so that our strongholds are removed. We are both being transformed into His image with ever-increasing glory which comes from the Lord who is the Spirit. We both know the consolation of the Spirit and the peace that comes from above.

I look into your eyes and I behold your tears. They are my tears...tears of Godly sorrow, tears of brokenness, tears of joy.

I behold the light in the your eyes. I know you. This is the Light that He has put in my eyes. The Light that comes as we who with unveiled faces reflect the Lord's glory. This is the Light of Christ, the Light of Freedom. Where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom. 

Your life is my life. Whatever each of us does not know, whatever He has revealed to us, whatever you have done, whatever you have left to do, whatever you have spoken, whatever you have left to say...In His grace I love you. We love us. We are in His love. Nothing can separate us from His full redemption and perfection for His people. He has made perfect forever those who are being made holy. 

OUR COMMON EXPERIENCE WITH GOD AS HE REVEALS HIS GLORY TO US IS WHAT UNIFIES US. OUR HEARTS ARE HELD BY OUR KING OF LOVE. 

May He cause our love to increase infinitely more for Him and one another. 

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