Pleasant Stone Devotional Meditation: December 1

 “Our Lord Jesus Christ, Who died for us, that, whether we wake or sleep, should live together with him” ~ 1 Thessalonians 5:9b, 10

Let this bright “pleasant stone” take you by the heart with its full and lovely meaning. It can change your entire heart-life toward Christ and toward all humanity. Love like this makes tender. Love like this reshapes into its own image.

This is the love of God as it is explained to us in “… our Lord Jesus Christ, who died for us [so] that whether we wake or sleep, we should live together with him.” So that we could live together with Him. Dr. Verkuyl in the Berkeley version translates the “should” which so often misleads us as “might.” “… that we might live together with Him.”

The word “should” has come to be coated all over with the dust of duty. We sigh and say “Oh, I should call her today,” But it is something we evidently dread. Or at least something which we are not anticipating with joy. But here in this deeply poignant verse we are reminded that Jesus did what He did on the Cross of agony and shamed and blood so that we might (be enabled to) live together with Him. Can you conceive wanting so much to be with your enemies that you would suffer the death of the Cross for the privilege of being with them? No. We can’t conceive this. But that is why we cannot counterfeit the love of God. It must be shed abroad in our hearts by the Holy Spirit. There is no other way. He will begin melting your heart so that He can come in bringing this kind of love to you, if you open the Heart that prompted this verse right now.

If you open yourself to the One who prayed, just a few hours before they killed Him, that He could be with you forever.

“Father, I will that they also, who thou has given me, be with me where I am.”