Gordon
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« Reply #1 on: January 25, 2003, 04:12:22 am » |
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INSIDE OUTSIDE by Gordon Wong
There is something about the Word made flesh that causes us to see and wonder. For in Him, we find the depths of eternity for the heart to find satisfaction. In Him exists the longing of every heart to find those invisible attributes we so long - love, holiness, purity, and life. We long to have his hand pen the energies of His word into reality upon our hearts.
How unfair it is to expect another to announce such words to hearts. Our hearts can dwell in a place that is arid, dry, and crusty in this passing world. How thirsty, how revolting to dwell within the pit of our misery and sin. Pained by the things which we cannot have living in a sensory plane. How vain and disappointing to find the world around us crumbling and the earth groaning under the strain of man’s bane of futility. Everything crumbles. Everything slips through our fingers laughing at us. Our relationship with one another crumbles because we have lived so long for seen things and nothing of the unseen. We are enamored by beauty of the vanity, and it has taken its toll on our marriages. We lust after the physical and give very little thought to the inward. Men and women divorcing and going for someone younger, and living for the outside instead of the inside. We worship beauty and deny character. We will pay whatever amount if it preserves us outwardly. We live a life of futility only to find something which leaves us empty.
Yet somehow, somewhere when we let our guard down and talk of love, life, we talk about the inside. We talk about wanting to someone to look inside us, and know us. To know every facet of who we are, but we’re too afraid to let it be revealed. We’re afraid to open up because we fear sludge and darkness or our hearts to frighten others away. Inside, outside. We live a miserable existence to go under the spell of this dark world and to deny the truth that we need a new road, a new path and a new life.
God saw us in our sin, our despair, and pity filled His heart.
God sent His son, it was Inside, Outside. The inward counted, not the outward. So meek, and humble did the Son come into existence. You look at the the line that connects to Him; the root of David in gospel of Matthew and you find the outside of Rahab’s shameful existence, but inwardly there was something God saw: faith. Then you can’t help but notice the name of David. God talked about David as , "A man after my own heart." God peered into his heart, like a bright beaming light cutting through the weakness and darkness of a man to find something no one ever saw - the inside beauty of the heart. What a consideration, God looking inside us and us seeing that fact: God desires to look inwardly. The Father could do that with the Son and find such a depth that the fullness of the God dwelled in Him. John saw a glimpse and called it Grace and Truth. The men who spent time with him were amazed that such things could be comprehended, such things could be touched, such things could draw so near that it would mark their lives forever as "men who have been with Jesus."
Something inward, something invisible. Something that triggered a response, like a woman seeing her husband pulling out a ring. She clasps her hands over her mouth in utter captivity of the moment. Something that elicits a response that hangs in the air.
It was like that of the Son, "This is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased." The Father saw the inward treasure of the Son’s heart: Love, truth, life, joy, holiness, purity, power..every attribute one could ever abscribe to perfection came down in a transformation from the invisible to the visible. If he moved around your daily life, you would just walk by him in the mall, house or office, but if you took the time your eyes would grow big, your mind would race and in the depths of your own thoughts He would make you think. In the cauldron of your thoughts, by the grace of God, you would have your eyes opened to "the Word made flesh".
Be in awe as you watch him touch the leper with such boldness of love. No regard of himself, and in his eye such tender compassion and mercy. His act would shame your heart because how could we love one so ugly, so repulsive, so disgusting? Then it might fall upon you. Could he love me? His Beauty is for eternity to behold, but you would discover layers upon layers of light, and purity wrapped in humility. It pricks your heart: His life and words resonates from another world. A world beyond your vision and causes you to breathe upward.
He makes you see different…and he causes a fire to burn in you that you thought died a long time ago.
Be convicted as you watch him go the adulterous woman, and find his life so pure, so holy there is no mistaking the intention of his heart.
A cleansing for her sin. For the first time, you will find a woman of that life to look at this Jesus and find eyes that for the first time look at her like a precious soul, and not a body. Will you break down in worship in the sight of purity?
Be quivering in your own limitations as you see what you thought was invisible be acknowledged on the mountain. You thought you knew him….but you didn’t know the beauty, the power, the majesty that existed on the inside. In that moment, you saw the indescribable power of his Glory and it simply overwhelms you leaving you in fear and awe. What was it like to have eternal light bathe and wash over you?
The angels and cherubims covered their faces when he approaches. Not of fear, but of something so beautiful it's frightens them. Holiness, power, beauty and light beyond words. Does it make you think if he would leave trace of light where he walked? Is there a sweet perfume of Heaven where he walks? What’s His presence like? What is like to be with someone like that? What is like to have someone be near you? What if you knew you could be in that place like John who lay his head upon the breast of the Almighty Prince of Angels?
His light shines everywhere, and just fills you chasing everything not of His Glory. It simply takes your breath away. Does Him being near giving you a taste of eternity leaving you wanting more of Heaven?
Wanting to live in another time and another place?
It does, in a place called our hearts.
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Dedicated to Brent and Suzie Tr0ckman to whom Christ has wrought an inner beauty, and have always been my friends
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