I can imagine someone saying that he dislikes my idea of heaven as a place where we are patted on the back. But proud misunderstanding is behind that dislike. In the end that Face which is the delight or the terror of the universe must be turned upon each of us either with one expression or with the other, either conferring glory inexpressible or inflicting shame that can never be cured or disguised.
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To please God ... to be a real ingredient in the divine happiness ... to be loved by God, not merely pitied, but delighted in as an artist delights in his work or a father in a son-it seems impossible, a weight or burden of glory which our thoughts can hardly sustain. But it is so. 2
I have a hard time thinking that God would actually take delight in me. In fact, I have a sense if he took delight in me it would cheapen his value. I come with a perspective that I am a problem and continuing problem and God needed to provide a solution. This situation is true, yet only half the truth. A half truth can be as dangerous as a lie. I need to bask in some deeper truths.
It is awesome my problem is solved by the sacrifice of God's son, but wiping my slate clean is only half the problem. For several weeks I have been struggling and wrestling with the ability and value for God to take delight. My Dad takes delight in me beyond merely pity or duty. Envisioning this delight and fatherly care in God towards me is a position hard to sustain on my own. There is a heavy weight to feel not merely pitied but an object of delight.
I am beginning to see the solution to this portion of the problem is an extremely significant and utterly necessary portion for a life of wonder in the redemptive work of God. The problem of delight is solved by the perfect life of God's Son. God looks on me and sees his good Son! It awesomely solves the problem of delight. I am adopted into his family, I am a son ( 1jn3:1, 1 pt2:24) and I can now call him Daddy ( Rm8:15, Gal4:6)! My negatives are imputed to Christ solving one problem ( 1Jn4:10, 1 Cor15:3) and Christ's positives are imputed to me solving the second problem ( Rm4:6, Rm4:11, Phl3:9). This solution simultaneously displays God's holy goodness in both righteous wrath and abounding mercy. The second portion is the wonderful mix of divine delight. It is incredibly freeing and incredibly humbling. It is a foundational anchor to be part of a real ingredient in the divine happiness. "In Christ" carries massive weight to much to sustain.
Without this second component, I will begin to anxiously and pridefully depend on my self for the measure of right standing before God. With it, I can have gutsy courage to take otherwise risky radical steps getting close to scalpel sin.
What great confidence, what freeing joy to feel the weight of my guilt and then springboard to see the worth of what God has done. Without seeing this worth, I miss seeing the glory in the cross. For along time, I have been wanting to feel and savor the the cross in deeper ways. A truth I want to sing. It is not just past grace to even the score, but continued grace to be a real ingredient in the divine happiness . Oh God, please heighten my joy in this truth the rest of my life and have it dig deep in my heart and drive me from sin.
No condemnation now I dread;
Jesus, and all in him, is mine;
alive in him, my living Head,
and clothed in righteousness divine,
bold I approach th' eternal throne,
and claim the crown, through Christ my own. 3
See what kind of love the Father has given to us, that we should be called children of God; and so we are. ( 1jn3:1)
It is a serious thing to live in a society of possible gods and goddesses, to remember that the dullest and most uninteresting person you talk to may one day be a creature which, if you saw it now, you would be strongly tempted to worship, or else a horror and a corruption such as you now meet, if at all, only in a nightmare. All day long we are, in some degree, helping each other to one or other of these destinations. It is in the light of these overwhelming possibilities, it is with the awe and the circumspection proper to them, that we should conduct all our dealings with one another, all friendships, all loves, all play, all politics.
There are no ordinary people. You have never talked to a mere mortal. Nations, cultures, arts, civilization - these are mortal, and their life is to ours as the life of a gnat. But it is immortals whom we joke with, work with, marry, snub, and exploit - immortal horrors or everlasting splendors. This does not mean that we are to be perpetually solemn. We must play. But our merriment must be of that kind (and it is, in fact, the merriest kind) which exists between people who have, from the outset, taken each other seriously - no flippancy, no superiority, no presumption. And our charity must be a real and costly love, with deep feeling for the sins in spite of which we love the sinner - no mere tolerance or indulgence which parodies love as flippancy parodies merriment. Next to the Blessed Sacrament itself, your neighbor is the holiest object presented to your senses. If he is your Christian neighbor he is holy in almost the same way, for in him also Christ vere latitat - the glorifier and the glorified, Glory Himself, is truly hidden. 4
