I have made You known to them, and will continue to make You known in order that the love You have for Me may be in them and that I Myself may be in them.- John 17:26

September 22, 2008 Floyd Ray Gage

Jesus came to reveal the Father to those that will trust in Him and follow Him. He came to reveal the Father so that some very important things can happen. Jesus tells us two of the main reasons that He came to make the Father known to us.

First, He makes the Father known to us so that we can have the same love in us that the Father has for the Son. The revelation of the Father has not always been that of love. There have been times when God has had to reveal Himself as Judge or Punisher. This has been necessary because of the depth and breadth of man’s sin. God has had no choice but to honor His righteousness and punish man for His sins.

Christ has come to reveal the deepest nature of God, His love. In Christ, we find the truest expression of the love of God. We will find only the love of God when we approach Him through Christ. Christ has paid the price for our sin and has removed the need for judgment. When we come to the Father through Christ all else is taken care of and the love of God can be fully experienced.

This is why Christ died, so that He could take the wrath of God for our sins and allow us to experience the love of God that He has experienced since before the beginning of all. Christ exchanged our sin for God’s love in our hearts and lives. He took what we rightfully deserve and gave us what He rightfully deserves. This is the nature of God’s sacrificial love and mercy.

Christ also came so that He could live in and through those that choose to follow Him. In this way, He can show the love of God on a grand scale much greater than He could have accomplished in the flesh here on this earth. It is true that Christ could have chosen another way to show His love on a worldwide scale, but then we would not have been a part of the equation.

You see, God not only wanted us to experience God’s love and salvation in an individual sense. He wanted us to experience God’s love at the deepest levels by making us instruments of the sharing of that love. As we allow Christ to live in and through us, we allow Him to reach through us to the hearts of those that are lost and dying and give them a chance to experience the love of God as well.

We therefore truly become Christians, little Christs, by being conduits of the same love that Christ was a conduit of in His life and sacrifice. We are part of a chain that reaches back to the Lord, Himself.

Christ Himself said that no greater love has a man for his brother than to lay down his life for him. Jesus proved this at the cross. We can now prove it and experience it by letting Christ have our lives and use them as His hands and feet in the world.

Christ is continuing to work and make the Father known in this world in and through His children. This is why it is so important for us to learn more and more from the Word of God. This is why it is so important for us to take every opportunity we can to worship and fellowship and serve with other believers. We cannot settle for just getting by as a believer, because then we miss out on the deepest aspects of God’s love. As we come to know Christ more and serve Him more, we experience the love of God more and we are able to share that love more effectively.

We are in a dynamic relationship with the Son of God that can continue to grow and bless if we will continue to surrender and be obedient to Him. Love is the theme!