Walking With Christ

John 11:35 Jesus wept.(ESV)

I’ve used this verse before, but I think it’s important enough to bring back up because so much of the bible can be understood through these two words. Jesus is the one who spoke the world into existence. Jesus was the one who knelt in the dust to make Adam. Jesus was the one who spoke with Joshua just before the walls of Jericho fell. Jesus was the fourth person in the fire with Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego. He is the creator of all and yet, He was moved so much that He wept. He knew that He would see Lazarus again. He knew that He would raise Lazarus from the dead in the very near future. He still wept.

This is the love of our God. He knows everything. He sees what we see. He hears what we hear. He feels what we feel. He is there in our darkest moments, counting the tears and urging us onward. He is there in our greatest triumphs, cheering us on. He does this because of who He is. He did not create anything that was ever or will ever be made as an afterthought. He is mindful of every hair on every head, every beat of every heart, and every moment for all of time. God does not make mistakes. Each one of us exists for a purpose. He knows what we will do with the gifts He has given us. He rejoices for every hardened heart that softens and turns back to Him. He weeps for every poor wretch who stubbornly refuses to turn away on the road to hell. He has placed countless obstacles in our way and thrown out every possible lifeline to give us the best opportunity to reach out for His always waiting hand.

He knows who will take His gift. Some argue that if He knows who will take His gift, why does He bother with those who will not? If He does not offer the gift of salvation even to those who will not accept it, then He is guilty of choosing who goes to heaven and who goes to hell. This is to say that those who would not ever accept the gift could say that they are not responsible for their situation because they were never offered an alternative.

He wants to have a close and personal relationship with every single one of us. He wants it so badly that He took on the sin of the entire world, accepted the punishment for that sin, and died on the cross to make sure that we have a way. He provides countless opportunities to turn aside. He puts people and sometimes other things in our path to nudge us in the right direction. He tries so hard to get us to choose Him that we almost have to fight against the call. His grace and mercy are boundless. There is no limit to either one. The apostle, Paul, is one of the greatest examples of this. Judas Iscariot might be an even greater example since Jesus knew that he would be the one to betray Him. Jesus still offered Judas grace and mercy. He still accepted Judas as a disciple.

We are never alone. God is always with us even when we are so entrenched in our sin that we can’t even acknowledge it for ourselves. Every single person that will ever exist is so important to Jesus that He would still go to the cross and take what He did just to save that one person. He would rejoice at that one person being saved. If the God who created every star, planet, blade of grass and rock in this universe thinks every single one of us is that important, then why don’t we act like it?