God demonstrates, present tense, by using the past tense act of Christ. God continues to show His love through this historical act. God causes you to look again at the Cross of Christ, and once again we feel His love in our hearts. The objective fact is the ground for the subjective experience. As you lift up Christ in your mind, God pours His love into your heart.
Everyone receives this experience in some measure, first when we realize that we are born again. Every true Christian knows the love of God not just as an argument, but as an experience, having the Holy Spirit lighten their eyes to see the beauty of Christ and the love of God and to begin to treasure Him in their hearts. 2 Corinthians 4:6-18 gives us another picture of this, with the initial light coming in and keeping us on fire even in the midst of suffering.
We can clearly see from Romans 5:1-5 that this fresh touch is definitely supposed to happen when we are in a trial and suffering. But what about right now, if we aren’t suffering though some difficulty, can we still receive a fresh touch? Yes! The experience of the fresh touch is something that happens to us in different measures and different times for different people, but it is something we can and should pursue. We don’t have to wait until we are suffering and broken before we seek God with our whole heart. We will all have to go through suffering, but we can all have this fresh touch as a regular part of our lives as well.
When you are fully focused on Jesus Christ, when you go from worry to wonder, that is how you get a fresh touch of hope with the love of God and for God. |
