In Christ Alone – Heights of Love

Greetings Dear Reader,

“This is love: not that we have loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son to be the payment for our sins.”  Sometimes I think that this is all that needs to be said.  It should be but it is not.  We find vast and interesting ways to make our hearts hard toward this love.

Every time I do not act out of love toward others I distance myself from the love that redeems me.  Christ does not abandon me. Christ does not leave me alone.  He does not add up my errors, hold grudges, or abandon me.  He asks me to do the same.  He asks anyone who follows him to do the same.

If it is in Christ I live and move I can show this same love.  I can lay aside fear and strife.  I can truly trust and give.  I can let the pain of the past fade and take away its power to intimidate my future.  The love of God never fails.  If I act in that love then I cannot fail.  Even if others do not respond, I have not failed.   Because God loves me he will never fail me.

This is the ultimate hard deck.  This is the thing beyond which there is nothing that needs to be said.  This is the essence of what it means to follow Christ.  It is the core of what it is to be in Christ alone.  When I am alone if I am in Christ I can find a way.

“What will separate us from the love Christ has for us? Can trouble, distress, persecution, hunger, nakedness, danger, or violent death separate us from his love? As Scripture says: ‘We are being killed all day long because of you. We are thought of as sheep to be slaughtered.’ The one who loves us gives us an overwhelming victory in all these difficulties. I am convinced that nothing can ever separate us from God's love which Christ Jesus our Lord shows us. We can't be separated by death or life, by angels or rulers, by anything in the present or anything in the future, by forces or powers in the world above or in the world below, or by anything else in creation.”

How Deep the Father’s Love for Us – Stuart Townend

How deep the Father’s love for us,

How vast beyond all measure,

That He should give His only Son

To make a wretch His treasure.

How great the pain of searing loss -

The Father turns His face away,

As wounds which mar the Chosen One

Bring many sons to glory.

Behold the man upon a cross,

My sin upon His shoulders;

Ashamed, I hear my mocking voice

Call out among the scoffers.

It was my sin that held Him there

Until it was accomplished;

His dying breath has brought me life -

I know that it is finished.

I will not boast in anything,

No gifts, no power, no wisdom;

But I will boast in Jesus Christ,

His death and resurrection.

Why should I gain from His reward?

I cannot give an answer;

But this I know with all my heart -

His wounds have paid my ransom.

Wishing you joy in the journey,

Aramis Thorn

Mat 13:52 So Jesus said to them, "That is why every writer who has become a disciple of Christ’s rule of the universe is like a home owner. He liberally hands out new and old things from his great treasure store.”

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