Be Thou supreme, O Jesus Christ,
Nor creed, nor form, nor word,
Nor holy Church, nor human love,
Compare with Thee, my Lord!
In your daily life, what is “supreme” to you? In other words, what is your top priority? We are often occupied by many things: struggling for our own survival, considering how we can entertain or satisfy ourselves, and fighting to preserve all that we have. As human beings, these are all basic parts of our living. But sooner or later, we have to admit even when all these are taken care of, we are still not complete, still not satisfied. Since Cain tilled the ground in Genesis — in fact, even from the very first man, Adam, who sinned and became cursed to toil the ground — fallen man has occupied himself with his own survival (3:17; 4:2; 4:14-22). The result of our independent struggle is a living apart from the Lord (v. 16); it is a cursed life of endless toil and wandering, with no true satisfaction.
How can we be satisfied? The answer begins with this realization: human life without the Lord as the supreme One inside of us is “wretched” (Rom. 7:24). Just as the children of Israel had to see the emptiness of Egyptian living under Pharaoh (Num. 11:5), we, too, must see that a life independent from the Lord is desolate until we yield to Him. For the Lord to be supreme in us, we have to let go of all the other things we hold supreme: our garlic and leeks, our comfort and survival. We have to come to a point where we can see through them. The children of Israel in the wilderness needed to go through this process of transformation — of being saturated and permeated by Him — so that they could come out of the bonds of the world and self to become the tabernacle, His meeting place with man, God’s very habitation.
Moreover, this supreme One, appears to man not just by sheer might, but is experienced by us in attraction and in love. In Romans, Paul tells us that Christ Jesus not only saves us by justifying us, but also goes further to bridge all the shortfalls to make us conquerors “through Him who loved us” (Rom. 8:37). We can have this powerful and conquering life because of Who we are one with, for no one can separate us from the “love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord” (v. 39). It’s not hard to be free from all of the earthen things occupying us. We simply receive this One as love to us, yielding to Him as He saturates us with Himself. When we are saturated in His reigning love, we are satisfied; we are more than conquerors. Lord, Be Thou supreme!
(Above are notes of fellowship taken from a gathering on 7/7/2024, not reviewed by the speaker.)