3.3 Jesus Wins Our Hearts

Jesus has not yet fully won anyone’s heart. We know that because we are not yet resurrected. Our heart’s belonging fully to Jesus and our bodies swallowed up by life are two sides of the same moment. Paul insists that Jesus will win the heart of every created thing.

No one has greater love than this, that he should set forth his soul for the sake of his friends (John 15:13). – By this we KNOW love (1 John 3:16). Jesus’ death was the outward visibility of this love, convincing us of the far greater reality taking place inside of Him. Jesus died for us, for our sakes, that we might know Love, first, and that we might seize hold of the end of sin, second.

I Know. I know against all press inside and out that I am utterly free from sin inside of God because I know that the Blood and Cross of Christ are profoundly absolute, larger than all. I know against all winds of opposition that God my Father is utterly with me in all things, sharing my life with me because I know the Love of Jesus for me, personally, love beyond all. And I know that I have no chance of coming out of the swirling traps, the quicksand, of my psychotic lostness by any other means.

I know that I live inside of Jesus inside the Father, and I know that the Father lives inside of Jesus inside of me. It has been many years since I have faced any kind of “choice,” for to what measure is possible right now, Jesus has won my heart.

The Deeper Meaning. We want to look now at the deepest meaning of “By this we know Love – in that He set forth His soul for us.” As wonderful as it is that God through Jesus is always initiating all Salvation towards us with eagerness, and as wonderful as the meanings of Jesus as Propitiation and as Surety for us and for God are to us, there is something even deeper that is the thing by which Jesus has won my heart.

That deeper thing is that the Agony of Jesus’ Soul in Gethsemane and on the Cross, the Agony of that man on his face in the mud under a cross He could not carry, was for me, for me personally. “Here am I, Father, I and Daniel whom You have given Me.”

The Father’s Cup. I am glad that William Tyndale, when he was translating Luke into English, could find no English term for the key word in Gethsemane. Thus, like Paul with Greek, he simply invented a new English word, and agonia became agony. I know agony; it has been my companion since I was nine.

This was not physical pain for Jesus, but the agony of His soul. And what was in the Father’s cup? May I suggest that what was in that cup did not cause the agony. The agony was the cup itself. From that wondrous moment when Jesus rose to His feet in Gethsemane, I was inside of Him, inside of His Soul. This is the foundation of Paul’s Gospel, that I am inside of Jesus from Gethsemane to the right hand of God.

The Bottom Line. It was Isaiah who heard the loudest words ever spoken in the history of creation, as Jesus rose to His feet in Gethsemane, “Here am I, God, I and the children whom You have given Me – I and Daniel whom You have given Me.” (Always, put your own name there instead of mine.) You see, it was not just God, there, inside of that man on his face in the mud under a cross he could not carry, but I was there as well, carried by Jesus, carried by Father, through a way neither Jesus nor I could go. (Speak this as yourself.)

Agony serves one purpose; it takes a man to his bottom line, to the only thing he will accept, to the absolute core of his decision. What a man says at the depths of his agony is what a man is.

Set Forth Soul. By this we know Love, in that Jesus set forth His soul for us. The Greek for “set forth soul” is tithemi psuche. The words “laid down His life” are not wrong, for that is the context. But the literal translation of “set forth soul” is the meaning inside the context. It is the meaning of my Salvation.

Just as Isaiah heard the meaning of Jesus’ soul as He rose up from agony, so God gave to David to hear the swirl of human awfulness inside of Jesus as He hung upon the cross. Connecting 1 John 3:16 with Psalm 22 is the most important thing God has ever done with me inside my Bible. I did not search out this connection, but it thrust itself into my life and onto my page over and over until, inside the agony of my own soul, I – turned around.

On the Brink. My God, My God, why have You forsaken Me? Only those who eat of the knowledge of good and evil imagine in their delirium that God has forsaken them. – Cursed is every man who hangs upon a tree. As Paul said, Jesus became that curse for us, for our sakes. Jesus was teetering on the brink. It was not possible for Him to be any closer to losing everything into rebellion.

At the same time, I don’t think it is possible for there to be any greater horror hitting any man than the horrific wickedness of the words being hurled at Jesus by the shepherds of God’s Church. David heard the contempt eating away at Jesus’ soul, “Dogs, bulls of Bashan – they ridicule Me – I am a worm.”

I Was There. For years, the most comforting passage of Scripture to me was Lamentations 3. I am the man who has seen affliction by the rod of His wrath. He has led me and made me walk in darkness and not in light. Surely He has turned His hand against me time and time again throughout the day. Why? How? – Because those words took me to the same place they took Jeremiah and to the same place they took Jesus. – Therefore I have hope – Great is Thy faithfulness.

Now, Paul claimed, at the core of his gospel, that I was there, literally and substantially, inside of Jesus, inside the utter distress of His Soul, inside the pain hitting against Him. What on earth does it mean – Jesus set forth His Soul for me?

The Words That Saved Us. You see, the big question inside this whole picture is – Where was God? Paul said that in the middle of all that agony and distress, God Himself was inside of Jesus, hanging there upon the cross, reconciling the world-cosmos to Himself. But did Jesus know that?

Here is the bottom line. Here are the words that saved me, whispered ever so quietly. You see, the decision was already made in Gethsemane; now in the midst of all horrendous attack, that simple and quiet decision prevailed. “Help Me. Save Me.” Already Jesus has departed from Adam. Yet there was something more, the absolute bottom line, the definition of our Salvation, now and forever. – “You have answered Me.”

God-With-Me. Inside of this moment, the word tithemi, set forth, means, “made available for others.” Another way to say, “You have answered Me” is, “God, You are with Me.” The horror began with “Why have You forsaken Me,” but it ended with “God, You are with Me.”

What does that mean for me?

As Jesus rose to His feet in Gethsemane, He drank me into Himself, giving me a place inside His own Soul through all that was to come, forever and ever. But when Jesus said, “God, You have answered Me,” He invited the Father into His same Soul, also sharing all of His utterly human agony with Him.

The Father and I Together. And there, inside the Soul of Jesus in His utter distress, inside the bottom line of what He is now and forever, the Father and I met together, there above the Blood inside of Mercy. Jesus gave His soul to my Father and Jesus gave His soul to me, and inside His Soul, inside His Heart, Jesus joined Father and me together again, that we might share life together.

It was the action of receiving the Father into His fleshy Soul, Jesus’ flesh given for God and for me, that saved me, that joined me with God, the One who shares all form with me. I know this is True, because I also have been there, in the utter agony and distress of my soul, receiving Father with me, and receiving this one causing me so much pain, that I might join Father and them together, inside of Love. I know it is God.

Jesus Has Won My Heart. Jesus was silent outwardly through all this distress of Soul. It was only after He said inside, “Father, You are with Me,” that John and Mary His mother heard outwardly what Jesus spoke as the Creator and Sustainer of ALL! “Father, forgive them, for they do not know what they are doing.” And out from those words flowed the New Creation, all things brand new, all things now out from God.

Let me explain something to you. It is this man, JESUS, who has won my heart, and no other. And this same man would win your heart as well.

By this we have known Love, in that Jesus set forth His soul for us, for our sakes, AND WE ALSO are committed to setting forth our souls for our brothers and sisters.