Continued from April 14
Let me now broaden the net of Christ’s influence to include everything about Him in addition to the cross in a second example of how knowing Christ more fully changes you;
“There is always more to see in what we see.”
Earlier I asked you to ask the question, “how can knowing this, what happened at the cross, more deeply, change me?”
Hence the refrain from an old hymn, “What wondrous love is this O my soul, O my soul? “There is more to see here.
When you hear a poor sermon on the sufferings and eventual crucifixion of Christ, the focus will be on the pain and suffering Jesus endured from the physical woundings; the scourging, the crown of thorns and the spikes that were driven into His body. But is that the extent of His sufferings? No, that is only “seeing men that look like trees walking.”
You’ll notice that the blind man was not fully content with the shadowy, deficient view he received from Jesus’ first intervention. He did not say, “Thank you Jesus, those walking trees are good enough for me. At least I can now see something.”
In the dedication section of a book I have at home, Seeing and Savoring Jesus Christ, John Piper wrote, “To the memory of C.S Lewis and Clyde Kilby, who taught me there is always more to see in what I see.”
The waves of outrageous fortune will come and beat upon our shores, but if we are in Christ, it is as though we have been tied by heavenly cords to an immovable stake buried 2000 thousand miles into the earth, so that when those proud waves recede, they may have killed us, but our spirits will be with Jesus. Our bodies be dead and our heads bowed, it is not a picture of final death, but the picture of the beginning of the deepest and most reverential worship. O the glory of “Christ in you, the hope of glory.” Colossians 1:27
Father, in light of so great a salvation, let us know, let us press on to know You, for there is so much more to see in what we see.