No Greater Love!

Reflecting on the Advent Season and Birth of our Savior I am reminded of a hymn I used to hear as a young teenage boy listening to the Billy Graham Crusades on television during the mid 60's. It was at a Billy Graham Crusade where I received Christ as my Lord and Savior on January 16, 1965. John Wesley White was the preacher and he preached a powerful message on the Cross and Jesus' sacrifice so that we might have abundant and eternal life through his shed blood on our behalf. In January 2010 I will celebrate 45 years as a Christian. I would like to say that everything has been peaches and cream but reality sets in and one realizes that there is a spiritual warfare in our pilgrimage to the Father's House. I have fallen flat on my face at times but every time the Lord Jesus has helped me up, dusted me off, and continued to be at my side through the journey. This is true for every believer wherever they are in their walk with the Living Christ. That's why we love him so because his Grace is Greater than all our Sin. He's sticks with us because he is NOT willing that Any should Perish. Our Father in Heaven loved us so much that he gave his only Begotten Son. " For God so Loved the World that he gave his Only Son, that whoever Believe's In Him should Not Perish, but have Eternal Life."John 3:16 He Loved us so much! His Son is the Only way to the Father's House, "Jesus said to him, I am the Way, the Truth and the Life , no one comes to the Father but by me." John 14:6. Peter, filled with the boldness of the Holy Spirit says, in Acts 4:12 "And there is salvation in no one else, for there is no other name under heaven given among men by which we must be saved". Below is an old hymn I loved as a teenage boy called "Ivory Palaces"

Ivory Palaces

My Lord has garments so wondrous fine,And myrrh their texture fills; It's fragrance reached to this heart of mine With joy my being thrills. Refrain Out of the ivory palaces, Into a world of woe, Only his great eternal love, Made my Savior go. Refrain His life had also it's sorrows sore, For aloes had a part; And when I think of the cross he bore, My eye's with teardrops start. Refrain His garments too were in cassia dipped, With healing in a touch; Each time my feet in some sin have slipped, He took me from it's clutch. Refrain In garments glorious he will come, To open wide the door; And I shall enter my heav'nly home, To dwell forever more. Refrain

If you have a computer you can listen to George Beverly Shea sing this hymn and the code to type in is: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F94VhdPKIW8

This Wonderful Jesus we worship here at Saint Marks left the Ivory Palaces and passed through Time and Space from Eternity so that you and I will enjoy Eternity with our Creator in His Heaven. And what makes Heaven Heaven? Why it's seeing Jesus face to face and singing the Song of the Redeemed. Being in His Presence!

Texts are from The Revised Standard Version or (RSV)

Ronald C. Spencer