A VICTORIOUS LIMP

All night long the Holy Spirit has been singing the song Above All  into me.
 
Above all powers, above all thrones
Above all wonders the world has ever known
Above all wealth and treasures of the earth
There’s no way to measure what Your worth 1
 
It’s a wonderful song, full of the Biblical truth that the One Who is above all became nothing to save us from our sin.  But some worship leaders won’t sing it, because of how it ends.
 
Like a rose trampled on the ground
You took the fall
And thought of me
Above all
 
It’s an enticing lyric, because on the cross Jesus definitely thought of me.  He thought enough of us all, in fact, to forgive our sin and make a place for us in the Father’s house and heart!  That’s the gospel, and it’s definitely for us, but it’s not about us.
 
What’s truly amazing about the gospel is the incredible way it reveals the love of the Father and the devotion of the Son.  No one loves like the Father, Who gave His son for us all.  And no one is devoted like the Son, Who forsook the world and even His own flesh to enthrone Himself in our hearts.  That’s what Philippians Chapter 2 declares: because He Who was in very nature God became nothing and submitted Himself to death on a cross, His name is exalted above all others!
 
i’m not above all; Jesus is.  Yes, He loves me dearly, like no one else does.  But that’s only amazing if it’s about Him.  So as He sang this song throughout my night, the Holy Spirit and i changed the ending to conform it to the gospel.
 
Like a rose trampled on the ground
You took the fall
Then took Your place
Above all
 
God can make a change like that because He wrote the song.  Whoever its human authors were, i’m certain they got their content from God, Who is the only one Who reveals Jesus to be our Christ. 2  So what about that one errant line?
 
Maybe that was the enemy, playing His favorite game, making God’s work about us.  Or maybe that was God, giving Satan a little wiggle room to deceive even the elect, if that were possible. 3 
 
Why would God do such a thing?
 
To test our faith, i suspect.  Not to see if we stumble, because He already knows every heart.  But to cause us to stumble, because that’s how Jesus sometimes works in us, as the Christ.
 
As it is written: "See, I lay in Zion a stone that causes people to stumble and a rock that makes them fall, and the one who believes in Him will never be put to shame." 4
 
For His name sake Christ’s Spirit leads us into valleys so dark that we stumble around, just trying to figure out which way is up. 5  But praise God because when we cry out to Him, He shows us that He is there.  He calms our jittery nerves by reassuring us it’s going to be OK, because He is the one Who handed us our crosses, and they’re not about us; they’re about Him.
 
It’s impossible to carry a cross without stumbling.  If anyone knows that, it’s Jesus.  Even He as a mere man needed help to carry His cross all the way to Calvary. 6  If anyone doesn’t stumble, He has no need for help, or the outstretched hand of our Savior.  That man has it so together that he’s tempted to think that the works of God are all about Him.  Yet to him Jesus might someday say, “I never knew you.  Away from me, you evildoer!” 7
 
In Jesus’s heart and mind, the work of God is to believe in Him. 8  If we love that way, by depending upon Him, we will yield lasting fruit. 9  But if our fruit is all about us, it will go up in flames. 10  
 
So i’m pretty certain Jesus loves that song, especially the last part which makes some of His beloved queasy.  “Just checking,” i imagine Him saying with a wink, “which gospel you’re believing: the one about you, or the one about Me?”
 
1  Above All by Paul Baloche and Lenny LeBlanc
2  Matthew 16:17
3  Matthew 24:24
4  Romans 9:33
5  Psalm 23:3-5
6  Luke 23:26
7  Matthew 7:23b
8  John 6:29
9  Matthew 7:16-17
10 1 Corinthians 3:13-15