I'm sure over Easter you'll probably read a lot of messages about Jesus and the fact that He rose from the dead on the third day. I'm not going to talk about that which may surprise you a little. I want to share something else that God put on my heart. Before Jesus came to this earth as a man - He lived and reigned forever and ever as the King of Glory in Heaven. Heaven was perfect in every way and the angels that Jesus created to serve loved him deeply and with utmost loyalty. Peace, love, truth and holiness reigned in Heaven. However, there was one angel though that chose in his heart to discard loyalty and coveted the throne of Jesus. Because of pride he exalted himself and led a violent coup to overthrow the rightful King of Heaven and claim the throne for himself. Many of us as humans assume that angels don't have emotions or cannot chose to sin but this is clearly incorrect by what the Bible tells us. One third of these angels also rebelled and followed Lucifer who became Satan the devil. A huge war broke out in heaven of which had never been witnessed before and the perfection of beauty - Heaven's worship leader Lucifer - was transformed into a hideous diseased dragon of darkness and evil.
The war ended with Michael the archangel capturing the dragon and under the command of God hurling him out of heaven with the speed and veracity of a lightning bolt as said in Luke chapter 10. All of the devils angels that chose evil over good we're given the same treatment - exile from the sanctuary. Heaven was once again peaceful and Jesus reign continued in power and glory. Furious and hell bent on revenge the devil knew he'd lost his chance to overthrow heaven and in a rage of resent and bitterness he turned his attention towards something he knew to be of extreme value and precious to the Creator... us. The devil's purpose was simple - to corrupt mankind. He'd failed at corrupting Heaven so he thought he'd go for the next best thing and bring sin and death to us all. Sadly, mankind fell for the trap and sin entered the world. Corruption spread like a cancer and we were doomed to destruction just like the devil himself. People no longer lived in perfect harmony but instead hatred, lust, fear, greed and death now reigned as a plague throughout our existence.
We needed help - badly. We needed salvation from ourselves and the corruption sin had brought on our kind. The Father looked on in Heaven and spoke to His Son Jesus and said "Someone must go and save them...". Jesus replied without any hesitation at all as He knew this was His fore ordained destiny and purpose... "I will go. I will save them. I will be their payment. I will become the doorway back to relationship with you Father." And so it was, the King of all Kings was sent by the Holy Spirit to be born as boy. He lived and walked among us as His earth name Jesus. He fed us, healed us, taught us and ultimately died for us to be the payment for our sins. We call Him Jesus but the angels that knew Him long before He came to this earth know Him for who He truly is... The True King. Here's the part I want to share. In 1 Peter 1:12it tells us of the angels that stayed loyal to Jesus that they "look into the things of salvation and marvel...". You see, these angels only know Jesus in His full glory, power and authority as the King of all Kings and the Supreme Creator of all things. For them, to see Him walk this earth as a vulnerable, humble human being that could be hurt, bleed and die is just preposterous. To them the concept of the King of Majesty that they know and love to reduce Himself to a mere man to serve and help us on our level is absolutely ludicrous. It's complete madness and insanity and makes no absolutely sense at all.
There's no logic in it and no reasoning that can be applied to why someone of so much power, glory and majesty would come and make Himself the container for all the worlds pain, suffering and sin for a fallen race of humans that only hurt and betray Him over and over. But that's just it. You see love isn't about logic, reason or understanding. True and pure selfless love is about choice. We never deserved Jesus to die for us and to be the payment for the sins we committed and the truth is He knows that. What Jesus did for us had nothing to do with deserving anything. It had everything to do with a choice of love. A choice that came with such high a price. Jesus told us in Matthew 26:53 that He had the ability to call 12 legions of His angels to protect Him at any time. The word legion comes from a roman military term which means a collection of soldiers ranging somewhere between 3000 to 6000. So that means at minimum Jesus had on call 36,000 angels ready and waiting to spring into action. Just to give you some perspective... these angels are of such extreme and fearsome power that only two were needed to destroy an entire evil city in the old testament. One of these visited Daniel in the Old Testament and as a result of being in contact with him he was bed ridden for a week. In Matthew 28:4 the entire garrison of hardened roman soldiers stationed to protect the tomb where Jesus lay in came in contact with a single angel and at just the mere sight of him put them in violent convulsions and rendered them as dead men.
These are not the fat little cherubs with golden harps shooting love inducing arrows as many of us had been led to believe by modern day myths and contemporary art. These are beings of amazing power given to them by their King that fail to be described by our narrow language and intellect. Their job is to serve their King and they are loyal to Him with a love and duty we simply cannot understand. So imagine that day as Jesus - the King of the Angels - hung on that cross bleeding, suffering and dying painfully and slowly for a race of humans that never deserved such a sacrifice. Imagine those angels watching from Heaven... waiting and itching to jump into action for their King full of fiery love, devotion and passion for Him. Waiting for Him to just mouth those words...to request their assistance. They would have been there in a heartbeat to serve and help Him and it all would have been all over in such a tremendous way. The world we know to be would most likely ceased to exist at the presence of so many of these beings. That is their very purpose - to serve and protect their King. But He never called for them... All they could do was watch the absurdity that was the King they loved dying in immense pain when He held such power and authority to change everything by just a word.
These angels must have asked the question and most likely still do to this day... "Why?... Why would He go so far for them...? Why would the King do this...?" The answer is simple. It cannot be explained by logic, reason or intellect. The answer is love. That is why He did what He did. He chose love for us. I pray for youtoday that God opens your eyes to His amazing, relentless, irrational and astounding love for you. What to the angels seems like madness - to us is called redemption. He chose you because He loves you. This is our King!
The war ended with Michael the archangel capturing the dragon and under the command of God hurling him out of heaven with the speed and veracity of a lightning bolt as said in Luke chapter 10. All of the devils angels that chose evil over good we're given the same treatment - exile from the sanctuary. Heaven was once again peaceful and Jesus reign continued in power and glory. Furious and hell bent on revenge the devil knew he'd lost his chance to overthrow heaven and in a rage of resent and bitterness he turned his attention towards something he knew to be of extreme value and precious to the Creator... us. The devil's purpose was simple - to corrupt mankind. He'd failed at corrupting Heaven so he thought he'd go for the next best thing and bring sin and death to us all. Sadly, mankind fell for the trap and sin entered the world. Corruption spread like a cancer and we were doomed to destruction just like the devil himself. People no longer lived in perfect harmony but instead hatred, lust, fear, greed and death now reigned as a plague throughout our existence.
We needed help - badly. We needed salvation from ourselves and the corruption sin had brought on our kind. The Father looked on in Heaven and spoke to His Son Jesus and said "Someone must go and save them...". Jesus replied without any hesitation at all as He knew this was His fore ordained destiny and purpose... "I will go. I will save them. I will be their payment. I will become the doorway back to relationship with you Father." And so it was, the King of all Kings was sent by the Holy Spirit to be born as boy. He lived and walked among us as His earth name Jesus. He fed us, healed us, taught us and ultimately died for us to be the payment for our sins. We call Him Jesus but the angels that knew Him long before He came to this earth know Him for who He truly is... The True King. Here's the part I want to share. In 1 Peter 1:12it tells us of the angels that stayed loyal to Jesus that they "look into the things of salvation and marvel...". You see, these angels only know Jesus in His full glory, power and authority as the King of all Kings and the Supreme Creator of all things. For them, to see Him walk this earth as a vulnerable, humble human being that could be hurt, bleed and die is just preposterous. To them the concept of the King of Majesty that they know and love to reduce Himself to a mere man to serve and help us on our level is absolutely ludicrous. It's complete madness and insanity and makes no absolutely sense at all.
There's no logic in it and no reasoning that can be applied to why someone of so much power, glory and majesty would come and make Himself the container for all the worlds pain, suffering and sin for a fallen race of humans that only hurt and betray Him over and over. But that's just it. You see love isn't about logic, reason or understanding. True and pure selfless love is about choice. We never deserved Jesus to die for us and to be the payment for the sins we committed and the truth is He knows that. What Jesus did for us had nothing to do with deserving anything. It had everything to do with a choice of love. A choice that came with such high a price. Jesus told us in Matthew 26:53 that He had the ability to call 12 legions of His angels to protect Him at any time. The word legion comes from a roman military term which means a collection of soldiers ranging somewhere between 3000 to 6000. So that means at minimum Jesus had on call 36,000 angels ready and waiting to spring into action. Just to give you some perspective... these angels are of such extreme and fearsome power that only two were needed to destroy an entire evil city in the old testament. One of these visited Daniel in the Old Testament and as a result of being in contact with him he was bed ridden for a week. In Matthew 28:4 the entire garrison of hardened roman soldiers stationed to protect the tomb where Jesus lay in came in contact with a single angel and at just the mere sight of him put them in violent convulsions and rendered them as dead men.
These are not the fat little cherubs with golden harps shooting love inducing arrows as many of us had been led to believe by modern day myths and contemporary art. These are beings of amazing power given to them by their King that fail to be described by our narrow language and intellect. Their job is to serve their King and they are loyal to Him with a love and duty we simply cannot understand. So imagine that day as Jesus - the King of the Angels - hung on that cross bleeding, suffering and dying painfully and slowly for a race of humans that never deserved such a sacrifice. Imagine those angels watching from Heaven... waiting and itching to jump into action for their King full of fiery love, devotion and passion for Him. Waiting for Him to just mouth those words...to request their assistance. They would have been there in a heartbeat to serve and help Him and it all would have been all over in such a tremendous way. The world we know to be would most likely ceased to exist at the presence of so many of these beings. That is their very purpose - to serve and protect their King. But He never called for them... All they could do was watch the absurdity that was the King they loved dying in immense pain when He held such power and authority to change everything by just a word.
These angels must have asked the question and most likely still do to this day... "Why?... Why would He go so far for them...? Why would the King do this...?" The answer is simple. It cannot be explained by logic, reason or intellect. The answer is love. That is why He did what He did. He chose love for us. I pray for youtoday that God opens your eyes to His amazing, relentless, irrational and astounding love for you. What to the angels seems like madness - to us is called redemption. He chose you because He loves you. This is our King!
