Even the small things
“Greater love has no one than this, that one lay down his life for his friends.”
John 15:13 NASBS
Dear Christian, I want to encourage you to walk with God, not only when you are struggling, but also in the smallest details of everyday living. For it is here that you will become well acquainted with His faithfulness. You will begin to see the great love with which He loves you, as the scriptures tell us, “Greater love has no one than this, that one lay down his life for his friends.” The word of God also tells us, “There is a friend who sticks closer than a brother.” Yes, my brothers and sisters, never allow yourself to forget that He purchased you with His own blood. Now, if He, being without sin, gave His own life on the cross for you, who are with sin, then He must care about every little detail of your life. As a matter of fact, His love for you goes beyond your imagination, for He set His affections upon you before He laid the foundations of the world. He wove you in your mother’s womb, and you are fearfully and wonderfully made in His image. Just think about it, the One who holds everything together by the breath of His word has numbered the hairs upon your head.
Oh Christian, I pray “that He would grant you, according to the riches of His glory, to be strengthened with power through His Spirit in the inner man, so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith; and that you, being rooted and grounded in love, may be able to comprehend with all the saints what is the breadth and length and height and depth, and to know the love of Christ which surpasses knowledge, that you may be filled up to all the fullness of God.” Shall you not cry out with joy as the Psalmist, “How precious also are Your thoughts to me, O God! How vast is the sum of them! If I should count them, they would outnumber the sand.” These precious thoughts of you were with Jesus when His flesh was torn asunder by the taskmaster’s lash. These thoughts were with Him when the executioner drove the iron through His hands and feet, penning Him to the cross. These precious thoughts were with Him in the middle of His anguish, hanging between heaven and earth with a crown of thorns wrapped around His head crying, “It is finished.”
So Christian, do not just seek Him when the storms of this life are bearing down on you, but walk with Him daily, spending each moment with Him, realizing that He is even watching over you while your head is resting upon your pillow. “Oh Lord, high and holy, meek and lowly, Thou hast brought me to the valley of vision, where I live in the depths but see Thee in the heights; hemmed in by mountains of sin, I behold Thy glory. Let me learn by paradox that the way down is the way up, that to be low is to be high, that the broken heart is the healed heart, that the contrite spirit is the rejoicing spirit, that the repenting soul is the victorious soul, that to have nothing is to possess all, that to bear the cross is to wear the crown, that to give is to receive, that the valley is the place of vision. Lord, in the daytime stars can be seen from the deepest wells, and the deeper the wells the brighter Thy stars shine; let me find Thy light in my darkness, Thy life in my death, Thy joy in my sorrow, Thy grace in my sin, Thy riches in my poverty, Thy glory in my valley.