Jesus knew God’s presence continually. He knew the intimacy and love of the Father.
In Matthew 11:27 he tells his followers that “All things have been committed to me by my Father. No one knows the Son except the Father, and no one knows the Father except the Son and those to whom the Son chooses to reveal him.”
Jesus had a close intimate relationship with God. He was constantly aware of what God was doing. He only ever did what he saw the Father doing.
At one point in John 10:29-31 (NIV), Jesus says, “My Father, who has given them to me, is greater than all; no one can snatch them out of my Father’s hand. I and the Father are one.” Again in John 16:32 (NIV), Jesus says, “Yet I am not alone, for my Father is with me.”
The relationship was one of infinite love. The Father and the Son had loved each other from all eternity. This love was infinitely long and absolutely perfect.
Do you know God? Is he present in your life?
Or is he absent?
When you pray, does it feel like the prayers just echo off the ceiling? Have you given up praying? For many of us, we go through times in our life, when God seems more absent than present. We may feel that God has given up on us or turned his back on us. Jesus knew God’s presence daily, except for one moment in his life. The moment when God was absent. The moment when Jesus became The Forsaken.
Read Matthew 27:33-46
Jesus experienced God’s absence so that you can experience God’s presence
How will you respond to suffering and pain? How will you react when God feels absent? Will you despair and turn away from God? Or will you embrace the one who experienced the absence of God for your sake. Who experienced immeasurable pain for your rescue and reconciliation with God. Are you able to say to God, “Not my will, but your will be done.” When things don’t go your way. When your kingdom is under threat. Are you able to say to God, even when you don’t feel he is there, “Into your hands I commit my spirit.”
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