Darren Whitehead is an old Mount Gambier boy who currently pastors as part of Bill Hybel’s team at Willow Creek.
Here’s a piece written by him and Jon Tyson, posted at Catalyst blog called The Love You’ve Only Heard About.
How do we truly experience the love of Jesus?
Recently while studying the Gospels, I spent some time meditating on the baptism of Jesus, to see how he remained in his Father’s love. Jesus’ baptism is one of the most insightful moments in the Gospels. It’s like overhearing a conversation between the Trinity: “As soon as Jesus was baptized, he went up out of the water. At that moment heaven was opened, and he saw the Spirit of God descending like a dove and alighting on him. And a voice from heaven said, ‘This is my Son, whom I love; with him I am well pleased.'”
I had never before noticed the timing of this verse in Jesus’ life. Jesus was yet to cast out demons, raise the dead, confront the Pharisees, train his disciples, die for our sins, or be resurrected from the grave; yet, the Father tells him that he is pleased with him. Jesus, until this point, had been laboring in obscurity as a humble carpenter; so what was the Father pleased with? It couldn’t have been his ministry or his teaching or his leadership, as these were yet to happen. What had Jesus done that made the Father proud? He had spent thirty years cultivating an abiding passion and love for God. The only glimpse we have of Jesus in his early years is in the temple, seeking to be about his Father’s business.
Could it be that God is most pleased not with what we do for him but with the life of love we cultivate with him? Maybe this is why Jesus seemed so free from needing the approval of men. He had all the approval he needed; the voice of his Father drowned out the voice of the crowd. I began to see that if I were going to live a life that was truly pleasing to God, my primary task would have to shift from doing things for God to living life with him. What I had forgotten about the early years of my faith was the thing that had captured my life-not getting to serve God in ministry-but serving God himself. I began to see that the primary task of my life was to prioritize time with God and learn to hear his blessing and love spoken over me. Only then would I be free from the crowd and the addiction to accomplishments.
Read the rest of The Love You’ve Only Heard About at Catalyst Space.
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