I disagree with Di on the perfection of angels. I had once heard, from someone far more knowledgeable on the Bible than me, that angels don’t have free will. I immediately disagreed there, as well. And this goes back to my point on Dionysus. If angels were perfect, and if they had no free will, how did they fall? How did they rebel against God and be cast out of Heaven?
Further, if Lucifer was cast out, how did he stroll back in and make the wager with God over Job?
I wonder about this, too--I find Di's description of degrees of remove from God incredibly useful for thinking about different ways any individual may know Him. And it's inspired some of the most moving Christian art, from Dante and Milton (See Book V of Paradise Lost) to C.S. Lewis. But it's also likely indebted to the Neo-Platonic theory of theurgy (a complicated series of rituals for drawing nearer to God) as well as the Bible. It might be meant more as a philosophical rubric for thinking about our relationship with God than an actual claim about the different kinds of entities that really exist in heaven. That's what I found useful about it in writing this letter, anyway.
And one important feature of the Di-guy's whole system is that every superior level reaches down to lift up the lower levels as high toward their own as possible, which in later writers inspires the thought that actually *every* soul might gradually process up the ranks through the gracious help of those above...this shows up in a big way in Milton, where Raphael hints to Adam that men may process upward to become angels themselves (just as angels, as you indicate, can fall downward). Makes it more of a journey and less of a rigid or static thing.
That’s a beautiful thought, to work your way up to Angel. Our corporeal brains have a hard time imagining floating around Heaven with nothing to do for eternity. It would nice to find that we have work and hobbies to do, Lord willing we make it there. ☺️
On a more serious note, Spencer, your comment reminds me of The Great Divorce, one of favorite books by C. S. Lewis. Each of the ghostly shades who somehow made the bus ride are met by those who made the ascent to the mountains but who descend to greet, encourage, persuade, and offer aid to any soul who will relinquish whatever souvenir if hell or cherished earthly relationship or besetting sin they’ve put ahead of God in their life. If any will assent, the ones who’ve made the sacrifice of coming to greet them will journey with the “newcomers” supporting them as they grow more strong and solid.
The whimsical notion of angels as classes of frequent flyers delights me but also prompts be to wonder if the coach class angels ever attempt to sneak into the first class section as did Elaine Benis of Seinfeld fame.
I also got a nice chuckle over “the artist formerly known as...” reference.
Back in college I took a class on the Thomistic understanding of angels. Now, this was twenty years ago, and so, you know, take this with a massive grain of salt. But what I remember from that class was St. Thomas Aquinas said that as spiritual creatures, angels' knowledge is different than ours in that it's all encompassing, so if they looked at a triangle they would be able to instantly know everything about "triangle" that is possible to know. Or, in other words, they don't need to reason about things. Our reasoning is a power from our souls, but we have to come to knowledge about a thing, primarily, by means of deduction. Angels don't have to deduce, they simply look upon something and know everything they can about the subject. God alone knows everything, but the angels' power of knowledge is immense, immediate, and unchanging. Since they can know everything about a subject just by looking at it, and their knowledge about it is comprehensive and unchanging, their will is different as well. They were given only one choice to make. For God and his will, or against Him, towards themselves. They could look outwards and serve God or they could look inwards and serve themselves. Because they are, in a sense, absolute beings, their choice was what they were to become absolutely. They could choose to use their power to serve God and become good, and become good beings, or they could use their powers to serve themselves absolutely and become evil. This was their choice. Whereas we are in a constant flux of behavioral changes over the course of a lifetime, minutely choosing between good and evil and parceling out the merit of our existence that way, they did it all at once.
As for the order of the "choirs" of angels, which ones get to be closer to the" throne" of God, depends on their power of encompassing love and knowledge. The most powerful, the seraphim and cherubim, are the ones who are able to love and know the most about God. Interestingly enough, St. Thomas Aquinas thought the ones who could love the most would be the closest to God, the most powerful of all. The ones who could know the most would be next.
But that's all I can remember. I wasn't a good student and that was twenty years ago. Like I said, take it with a grain of salt. I leave it to the experts and the wise to put what I miss and got wrong, right.
Concerning this salvation, the prophets, who spoke of the grace that was to come to you, searched intently and with the greatest care, trying to find out the time and circumstances to which the Spirit of Christ in them was pointing when he predicted the sufferings of the Messiah and the glories that would follow. It was revealed to them that they were not serving themselves but you, when they spoke of the things that have now been told you by those who have preached the gospel to you by the Holy Spirit sent from heaven. Even angels long to look into these things.
Those in the know say that our sense of smell holds the oldest memories. Driving across the causeway to LBI, NJ (Long Beach Island) brings memories to mind from my childhood where I spent countless summers in Harvey Cedars and watching the surfers ride waves at Surf City and nearby environs. When you could enjoy the beach and avoid the badge girls by swimming out beyond the breakers. Still today, if I catch a whiff of that salted air caught between the bay and the ocean it brings me right back there in those moments. Back to a time before the affluent discovered the peace and beauty of that place and turned it into something it isn’t now, had never been and should never have become—just another shore town.
Smell is like that. Every once in a while, out of the blue I catch a whiff of something—it is always something of comfort. The smell of an old library I spent hours in as a child, of the creased pages, the leather and the dust. The smell of a horse and leather when I am nowhere near a barn or a horse. The reminder of something just out of reach but something that lives in my happiest memories. Those memories brought back by the complicated connections between mind and body and yes, spirit are little pieces of earthly miracles.
I recall after my dad had been deceased many years I was driving my pickup on a snowy backroad in the middle of a snowstorm. My father had taught me how to drive and he’d done a good job pounding the skill and responsibility of it into my 17-year-old head. But I could never quite grasp the, “turn opposite to the skid” skill. I was always turning the wheel the wrong way much to my father’s frustration.
So, years later, driving over that unplowed, icy road was it any wonder that when my truck began to skid going over a blind hill I panicked? But miraculously, in that moment a peace came over me and the cab of my truck filled with the scent of my father’s cologne. I put my hands on the wheel and the truck straightened. Just in time as another vehicle raced by me. I’m here to tell you, it wasn’t me who righted that truck. I was shaken to my core. So much so, I had to pull over when I got the chance. The smell lingered for a while and then just gently evaporated. What had just happened? Had the veil thinned enough for my father to come across and help me? Had an angel or one of the Trinity chosen to intervene? This happened many years ago but I still have no perfect explanation for it. I’ve learned to appreciate the moment and the memory. For after all, what else are we but a collection of our moments and memories—body, mind and spirit.
Why am I writing all this? Why did talk of the angels and spirit bring these thoughts to mind and compel me to memorialize them? I’m not really sure I fully understand why but it is helpful to know that instances like these, just a vapor in the sense of time, are more real to me than much of what I think I know. Maybe that’s one reason I’ve given it up, surrendered to being content in my knowledge and all my circumstances including the not knowing or fully understanding. I trust that one day, it will all make sense.
That's an amazing story, and well said too. I have had these sorts of recollections too, triggered by something I can't put my finger on that take me to a time and place far away. Sometimes it's a memory so deep and seemingly lost I wonder if it was brought up from the depths on purpose...
Thank you. I have pondered the same question myself. Why is this memory, so long buried, surfacing now and in this way? Part of me likes thinking it is God's way of reminding me of the times in my life that were of intrinsic importance and to never truly let them go. So much of our existence is a blur of movement and forgotten ramblings. But these moments are like beautiful pieces of iridescent glass tossed in the ocean, rounded by the waves, They sit on the shoreline waiting for us to retrieve them and hold them up to the light of remembering. And in that remembering, we are reminded that our lives have been bought, for a dear price, Who awaits us in heaven. At least, that's some of what I think.
“We humans long for that kind of face-to-face knowledge—of God, of ultimate truth, of the world around us. But unlike the Seraphim we have to get it at a distance, reflected through the experience of our senses. We have to get our knowledge of the sacred mysteries “through a glass darkly,” approaching inside knowledge by way of outside experience.”
"But instead we are always tempted to stop at the surface, to imagine that by gaining power over matter we can dominate or dismiss the things of the spirit."
Well said. This is Reddit-tier atheism in a nutshell, and usually they are insufferable and smug about it too. One of the (many) reasons I stopped using that site.
To think we already have dominated, let alone understood, the workings of our inner-selves and the spirit is sheer hubris. We may have technology that generations past could only have dreamed of, but an honest appraisal would acknowledge that our understanding of the human mind and spirit is not much more advanced than it was when Jesus' ministry was first recorded. Our technology allows us to improve our material condition, but to understand the human condition is something truly beyond our comprehension as only the Creator knows how He made us in His image.
You write that “the baseline of our humanity” is “about making the connection between spirit and spirit.” That means putting the inside first, rather than the outside.
This is the entire message of Jesus Christ while here on earth. Every single thing He said was about the importance of putting the supremacy of the spirit first. Which is why He was so misunderstood then and continues to be now. We mixed creatures really don't like what we can't see, physically or spiritually.
“His Gaze” is a song from about life of Peter. It’s based on one Greek word, a word that’s pronounced imbleppo, which isn’t the prettiest sounding word, but it’s a beautiful idea. The idea is to see something with your mind, to really understand what it is that you’re looking at. And so the word imbleppo is used when Jesus says, “Consider the lilies of the field. That word, consider, is really the Greek word imbleppo. Jesus says. “When you look at the lilies of the field, you see them with your mind. And if you’ll do that, you’ll realize that they’re really a parable for God’s provision for us. That’s what it really means to see with your mind, to understand what it is you’re looking at. Okay?
That word is used by two different New Testament authors, Luke and John, to describe the way Jesus looks at Simon. Isn’t that interesting? The very first time they meet in John one, John uses this word. Andrew brings his brother, Simon Peter, to meet Jesus. And before they even speak,John tells us that Jesus turned and He considered—He gazed at—He looked intently at Simon Peter. And He said, “You ARE Simon. You WILL BE the rock.” So, before He even spoke to him, He knew all of his poetry, knew everything about him. The Bible tells us, in fact, John tells us a couple of chapters later that Jesus has this intuition about people. He doesn’t have to ask questions about a person because He knows what’s in a person.
That’s the first time the word is used. The other time is one of the last times they lay eyes on each other. It’s in Luke twenty-two. And it’s the moment when Peter betrays Jesus, and all the Gospel writers tell us that story because it’s an important story. It was an important story to the early church that they realized that someone with the stature of Peter had actually failed. Very important. We need to realize that our leaders fail.
And only Luke gave us this particular detail, though. Luke tells us that upon Peter’s third denial, Jesus turned and looked at Peter across the courtyard of Caiaphas.
Their eyes met. And it’s that word, imbleppo. Jesus turned and considered Peter. He looked at Peter with understanding. He looked at Peter with His mind because He understood. He had already said that Peter was going to betray him, hadn’t He? He told him he was going to do it. He’d said, “Peter, Satan has asked to sift you like wheat. But I have prayed for you. And so, when you turn around,strengthen your brothers.” Jesus knew every detail of what was going to happen. And so He didn’t just see Simon in his moment of failure. He saw his whole life. He saw what Peter would become and the wonderful man of God that he became.
The point is, that’s how He sees us. That’s how He sees us. He considers us. He sees us with His mind. And if you hear nothing else tonight, I want to hear this question.
Do you realize how magnificently you are loved by this man? This man who knows you better than you know yourself? Who loves you so much that He would rather die than live without you? Who loves you so much He wants to be married to you? This man who we celebrate for His sacrifice of Himself for us, out of love? Do you realize how magnificently you are loved by this man, and there’s nothing you can do about it. That’s the really cool part. There’s nothing you can do about it. You can’t act better and get more of His love. And by failing, the way Peter failed, you don’t forfeit one subatomic particle of it.
Let me say something that going to sound heretical. But let me finish my thought before you get out your lighters, okay? You may be here tonight and you may be enmeshed in the worst kind of a sinful lifestyle and simply can’t disentangle yourself from it. Well, I’m here to tell you that you don’t have to stop sinning for Jesus to love you. He loves as you are. In the sacrament of this present moment, He loves you as you are and not as you should be. You don’t have to stop sinning for God to love you. God loves you so you CAN stop sinning.
See, it’s not heresy after all.
You don’t have to stop sinning for God to love you.
God loves you so you CAN stop sinning.
Paul says it’s His kindness that leads us to repentance. It’s realizing how magnificently we are loved.
This is one of the greatest forces for then changing your life.”
But the Lord said to Samuel, “Do not consider his appearance or his height, for I have rejected him. The Lord does not look at the things people look at. People look at the outward appearance, but the Lord looks at the heart.”
I have no aspiration to become an angel - but I do aspire to be closer to God. I want a seat at the front of the plane and the good thing is that all the seats can become first class seats.
If the ranks of angels lift us up, I do not think it is to become like them-it is to bring us closer to God. So Psalm 8 is not describing our rank in heaven but our location. Spencer, does reading it Hebrew make this more clear?
I disagree with Di on the perfection of angels. I had once heard, from someone far more knowledgeable on the Bible than me, that angels don’t have free will. I immediately disagreed there, as well. And this goes back to my point on Dionysus. If angels were perfect, and if they had no free will, how did they fall? How did they rebel against God and be cast out of Heaven?
Further, if Lucifer was cast out, how did he stroll back in and make the wager with God over Job?
Things that make you say, “Hm…” 🤔
I wonder about this, too--I find Di's description of degrees of remove from God incredibly useful for thinking about different ways any individual may know Him. And it's inspired some of the most moving Christian art, from Dante and Milton (See Book V of Paradise Lost) to C.S. Lewis. But it's also likely indebted to the Neo-Platonic theory of theurgy (a complicated series of rituals for drawing nearer to God) as well as the Bible. It might be meant more as a philosophical rubric for thinking about our relationship with God than an actual claim about the different kinds of entities that really exist in heaven. That's what I found useful about it in writing this letter, anyway.
And one important feature of the Di-guy's whole system is that every superior level reaches down to lift up the lower levels as high toward their own as possible, which in later writers inspires the thought that actually *every* soul might gradually process up the ranks through the gracious help of those above...this shows up in a big way in Milton, where Raphael hints to Adam that men may process upward to become angels themselves (just as angels, as you indicate, can fall downward). Makes it more of a journey and less of a rigid or static thing.
That’s a beautiful thought, to work your way up to Angel. Our corporeal brains have a hard time imagining floating around Heaven with nothing to do for eternity. It would nice to find that we have work and hobbies to do, Lord willing we make it there. ☺️
On a more serious note, Spencer, your comment reminds me of The Great Divorce, one of favorite books by C. S. Lewis. Each of the ghostly shades who somehow made the bus ride are met by those who made the ascent to the mountains but who descend to greet, encourage, persuade, and offer aid to any soul who will relinquish whatever souvenir if hell or cherished earthly relationship or besetting sin they’ve put ahead of God in their life. If any will assent, the ones who’ve made the sacrifice of coming to greet them will journey with the “newcomers” supporting them as they grow more strong and solid.
The whimsical notion of angels as classes of frequent flyers delights me but also prompts be to wonder if the coach class angels ever attempt to sneak into the first class section as did Elaine Benis of Seinfeld fame.
I also got a nice chuckle over “the artist formerly known as...” reference.
Back in college I took a class on the Thomistic understanding of angels. Now, this was twenty years ago, and so, you know, take this with a massive grain of salt. But what I remember from that class was St. Thomas Aquinas said that as spiritual creatures, angels' knowledge is different than ours in that it's all encompassing, so if they looked at a triangle they would be able to instantly know everything about "triangle" that is possible to know. Or, in other words, they don't need to reason about things. Our reasoning is a power from our souls, but we have to come to knowledge about a thing, primarily, by means of deduction. Angels don't have to deduce, they simply look upon something and know everything they can about the subject. God alone knows everything, but the angels' power of knowledge is immense, immediate, and unchanging. Since they can know everything about a subject just by looking at it, and their knowledge about it is comprehensive and unchanging, their will is different as well. They were given only one choice to make. For God and his will, or against Him, towards themselves. They could look outwards and serve God or they could look inwards and serve themselves. Because they are, in a sense, absolute beings, their choice was what they were to become absolutely. They could choose to use their power to serve God and become good, and become good beings, or they could use their powers to serve themselves absolutely and become evil. This was their choice. Whereas we are in a constant flux of behavioral changes over the course of a lifetime, minutely choosing between good and evil and parceling out the merit of our existence that way, they did it all at once.
As for the order of the "choirs" of angels, which ones get to be closer to the" throne" of God, depends on their power of encompassing love and knowledge. The most powerful, the seraphim and cherubim, are the ones who are able to love and know the most about God. Interestingly enough, St. Thomas Aquinas thought the ones who could love the most would be the closest to God, the most powerful of all. The ones who could know the most would be next.
But that's all I can remember. I wasn't a good student and that was twenty years ago. Like I said, take it with a grain of salt. I leave it to the experts and the wise to put what I miss and got wrong, right.
Even the angels long to look into these things.
1 Peter 1:10-12 NIV
Concerning this salvation, the prophets, who spoke of the grace that was to come to you, searched intently and with the greatest care, trying to find out the time and circumstances to which the Spirit of Christ in them was pointing when he predicted the sufferings of the Messiah and the glories that would follow. It was revealed to them that they were not serving themselves but you, when they spoke of the things that have now been told you by those who have preached the gospel to you by the Holy Spirit sent from heaven. Even angels long to look into these things.
“The Spirit-filled, prayerful Christian actually possesses the mind of Christ, so that his reactions to the external world are the same as Christ’s”
-A.W. Tozer
Tozer is always a great place to land. Thank you.
Those in the know say that our sense of smell holds the oldest memories. Driving across the causeway to LBI, NJ (Long Beach Island) brings memories to mind from my childhood where I spent countless summers in Harvey Cedars and watching the surfers ride waves at Surf City and nearby environs. When you could enjoy the beach and avoid the badge girls by swimming out beyond the breakers. Still today, if I catch a whiff of that salted air caught between the bay and the ocean it brings me right back there in those moments. Back to a time before the affluent discovered the peace and beauty of that place and turned it into something it isn’t now, had never been and should never have become—just another shore town.
Smell is like that. Every once in a while, out of the blue I catch a whiff of something—it is always something of comfort. The smell of an old library I spent hours in as a child, of the creased pages, the leather and the dust. The smell of a horse and leather when I am nowhere near a barn or a horse. The reminder of something just out of reach but something that lives in my happiest memories. Those memories brought back by the complicated connections between mind and body and yes, spirit are little pieces of earthly miracles.
I recall after my dad had been deceased many years I was driving my pickup on a snowy backroad in the middle of a snowstorm. My father had taught me how to drive and he’d done a good job pounding the skill and responsibility of it into my 17-year-old head. But I could never quite grasp the, “turn opposite to the skid” skill. I was always turning the wheel the wrong way much to my father’s frustration.
So, years later, driving over that unplowed, icy road was it any wonder that when my truck began to skid going over a blind hill I panicked? But miraculously, in that moment a peace came over me and the cab of my truck filled with the scent of my father’s cologne. I put my hands on the wheel and the truck straightened. Just in time as another vehicle raced by me. I’m here to tell you, it wasn’t me who righted that truck. I was shaken to my core. So much so, I had to pull over when I got the chance. The smell lingered for a while and then just gently evaporated. What had just happened? Had the veil thinned enough for my father to come across and help me? Had an angel or one of the Trinity chosen to intervene? This happened many years ago but I still have no perfect explanation for it. I’ve learned to appreciate the moment and the memory. For after all, what else are we but a collection of our moments and memories—body, mind and spirit.
Why am I writing all this? Why did talk of the angels and spirit bring these thoughts to mind and compel me to memorialize them? I’m not really sure I fully understand why but it is helpful to know that instances like these, just a vapor in the sense of time, are more real to me than much of what I think I know. Maybe that’s one reason I’ve given it up, surrendered to being content in my knowledge and all my circumstances including the not knowing or fully understanding. I trust that one day, it will all make sense.
That's an amazing story, and well said too. I have had these sorts of recollections too, triggered by something I can't put my finger on that take me to a time and place far away. Sometimes it's a memory so deep and seemingly lost I wonder if it was brought up from the depths on purpose...
Thank you. I have pondered the same question myself. Why is this memory, so long buried, surfacing now and in this way? Part of me likes thinking it is God's way of reminding me of the times in my life that were of intrinsic importance and to never truly let them go. So much of our existence is a blur of movement and forgotten ramblings. But these moments are like beautiful pieces of iridescent glass tossed in the ocean, rounded by the waves, They sit on the shoreline waiting for us to retrieve them and hold them up to the light of remembering. And in that remembering, we are reminded that our lives have been bought, for a dear price, Who awaits us in heaven. At least, that's some of what I think.
Could it be because of this?
“We humans long for that kind of face-to-face knowledge—of God, of ultimate truth, of the world around us. But unlike the Seraphim we have to get it at a distance, reflected through the experience of our senses. We have to get our knowledge of the sacred mysteries “through a glass darkly,” approaching inside knowledge by way of outside experience.”
"... first-class premium select angels called Cherubim and Seraphim. They sit at the front of the plane, i.e., closest to God."
Actually, the cherubim ARE the plane: They pull God's chariot, in the biblical idiom.
(It's a blazing campfire in the winter night to see you two conversing like this.)
Hence, KAM, Spencer’s aside--“And, boy, are their wings tired.”
And now you go on to inspire me to picture “chariots of fire.”
Yet sometimes God moves our heart and widens the aperture so we can see Him and His love for us a little more clearly, if only for a moment.
What is the name of this painting and who painted it? It is beautiful. I don't know if I've ever seen it before.
Yes and what a beautiful time that is. To draw so close to Him that it feels otherworldly. Probably because it is.
Jennifer, I remember my English literature professor, Dr Hise, speaking of how we receive “glimpses”
"But instead we are always tempted to stop at the surface, to imagine that by gaining power over matter we can dominate or dismiss the things of the spirit."
Well said. This is Reddit-tier atheism in a nutshell, and usually they are insufferable and smug about it too. One of the (many) reasons I stopped using that site.
To think we already have dominated, let alone understood, the workings of our inner-selves and the spirit is sheer hubris. We may have technology that generations past could only have dreamed of, but an honest appraisal would acknowledge that our understanding of the human mind and spirit is not much more advanced than it was when Jesus' ministry was first recorded. Our technology allows us to improve our material condition, but to understand the human condition is something truly beyond our comprehension as only the Creator knows how He made us in His image.
You write that “the baseline of our humanity” is “about making the connection between spirit and spirit.” That means putting the inside first, rather than the outside.
This is the entire message of Jesus Christ while here on earth. Every single thing He said was about the importance of putting the supremacy of the spirit first. Which is why He was so misunderstood then and continues to be now. We mixed creatures really don't like what we can't see, physically or spiritually.
“His Gaze” is a song from about life of Peter. It’s based on one Greek word, a word that’s pronounced imbleppo, which isn’t the prettiest sounding word, but it’s a beautiful idea. The idea is to see something with your mind, to really understand what it is that you’re looking at. And so the word imbleppo is used when Jesus says, “Consider the lilies of the field. That word, consider, is really the Greek word imbleppo. Jesus says. “When you look at the lilies of the field, you see them with your mind. And if you’ll do that, you’ll realize that they’re really a parable for God’s provision for us. That’s what it really means to see with your mind, to understand what it is you’re looking at. Okay?
That word is used by two different New Testament authors, Luke and John, to describe the way Jesus looks at Simon. Isn’t that interesting? The very first time they meet in John one, John uses this word. Andrew brings his brother, Simon Peter, to meet Jesus. And before they even speak,John tells us that Jesus turned and He considered—He gazed at—He looked intently at Simon Peter. And He said, “You ARE Simon. You WILL BE the rock.” So, before He even spoke to him, He knew all of his poetry, knew everything about him. The Bible tells us, in fact, John tells us a couple of chapters later that Jesus has this intuition about people. He doesn’t have to ask questions about a person because He knows what’s in a person.
That’s the first time the word is used. The other time is one of the last times they lay eyes on each other. It’s in Luke twenty-two. And it’s the moment when Peter betrays Jesus, and all the Gospel writers tell us that story because it’s an important story. It was an important story to the early church that they realized that someone with the stature of Peter had actually failed. Very important. We need to realize that our leaders fail.
And only Luke gave us this particular detail, though. Luke tells us that upon Peter’s third denial, Jesus turned and looked at Peter across the courtyard of Caiaphas.
Their eyes met. And it’s that word, imbleppo. Jesus turned and considered Peter. He looked at Peter with understanding. He looked at Peter with His mind because He understood. He had already said that Peter was going to betray him, hadn’t He? He told him he was going to do it. He’d said, “Peter, Satan has asked to sift you like wheat. But I have prayed for you. And so, when you turn around,strengthen your brothers.” Jesus knew every detail of what was going to happen. And so He didn’t just see Simon in his moment of failure. He saw his whole life. He saw what Peter would become and the wonderful man of God that he became.
The point is, that’s how He sees us. That’s how He sees us. He considers us. He sees us with His mind. And if you hear nothing else tonight, I want to hear this question.
Do you realize how magnificently you are loved by this man? This man who knows you better than you know yourself? Who loves you so much that He would rather die than live without you? Who loves you so much He wants to be married to you? This man who we celebrate for His sacrifice of Himself for us, out of love? Do you realize how magnificently you are loved by this man, and there’s nothing you can do about it. That’s the really cool part. There’s nothing you can do about it. You can’t act better and get more of His love. And by failing, the way Peter failed, you don’t forfeit one subatomic particle of it.
Let me say something that going to sound heretical. But let me finish my thought before you get out your lighters, okay? You may be here tonight and you may be enmeshed in the worst kind of a sinful lifestyle and simply can’t disentangle yourself from it. Well, I’m here to tell you that you don’t have to stop sinning for Jesus to love you. He loves as you are. In the sacrament of this present moment, He loves you as you are and not as you should be. You don’t have to stop sinning for God to love you. God loves you so you CAN stop sinning.
See, it’s not heresy after all.
You don’t have to stop sinning for God to love you.
God loves you so you CAN stop sinning.
Paul says it’s His kindness that leads us to repentance. It’s realizing how magnificently we are loved.
This is one of the greatest forces for then changing your life.”
Michael Card
Only God sees our hearts fully.
1 Samuel 16:7 NIV
But the Lord said to Samuel, “Do not consider his appearance or his height, for I have rejected him. The Lord does not look at the things people look at. People look at the outward appearance, but the Lord looks at the heart.”
I have no aspiration to become an angel - but I do aspire to be closer to God. I want a seat at the front of the plane and the good thing is that all the seats can become first class seats.
If the ranks of angels lift us up, I do not think it is to become like them-it is to bring us closer to God. So Psalm 8 is not describing our rank in heaven but our location. Spencer, does reading it Hebrew make this more clear?