"[Piper pointed to] Calvary, where God displayed his justice and his love. He was glorified in the death of his Son. He loves his glory that much! And how great was the glory of the death and resurrection of the one and only Christ--the very Son of God! "The foundation of your salvation," Piper said, "is God's love for His own glory.
I'd never heard anyone speak that way about Jesus' death on the cross. I had always heard it explained in terms of my great worth. I am so valuable that God would send Jesus to die. The question Piper closed his message with deeply challenged me. "Do you love the cross because it makes much of you?" he asked. "Or do love it because it enables you to enjoy an eternity of making much of God?"
I left[the conference] with an unsettling thought that has never left me. If I love the Cross only for what it does for me, I will have reduced it to a monument to myself. But the greatest glory of the Cross is what it tells me about God. A God of justice and mercy. A God who loved helpless sinners like me so much that he came to die so we could be free to know and worship him for eternity."
~Joshua Harris, in
Dug Down Deep page 48
Thank you for sharing this--I've been pondering these thoughts all weekend. :)
ReplyDeleteIt gives the cross so much more depth doesn't it? To me it becomes all the more awe-inspiring that God chose to save me. He could have chosen another way to glorify Himself, but He chose to do so by redeeming me!
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