What is it that held him on the course to the cross? It was nothing less than the great love of God in his heart for sinners like us. “Those great drops of blood that fell down to the ground,” says Edwards, “were a manifestation of an ocean of love in Christ's heart.”
He's God with us, absorbing our failures into himself, and he's God for us binding his strength to our weakness. If we want to live mightily for Jesus, we have to collapse as failures into the arms of Christ. We don't need to make deals with God. The deal was made at the cross. We don't have to distinguish ourselves from others through our zeal. It's his zeal that writes the check for our salvation. Our zeal is always writing bad checks. Here's the wonderful gospel irony: only by resting in Jesus Christ can we actually find the energy to live for the glory of God. When we discover the finished work of Christ alone for salvation, and we begin to rest in him, the natural thing that happens is a reviving of the heart that leads to the energy we didn't have before. Barnabas Piper
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