John, the disciple of Christ who penned Scripture, experienced the glory of knowing God. Like King David, he drank deeply of the love of God. In Psalm 73:23-24 and verse 28 David wrote of his relationship with the Lord, “You love me! You are holding my right hand! You will keep on guiding me all my life with Your wisdom and counsel . . . . But as for me, I get as close to Him as I can!”^[1] John, too, came close and drank deeply. 

There is a song with a line in it that says, “God of glory, Lord of love, Hearts unfold like flowers before You, opening to the sun above.”^[2] And an unfolded heart wide open to God and His higher ways—a heart no longer crippled because it is severed from its Divine Source of perfect love—is a heart on a journey to glory and greatness because it is being restored by its Maker to His intended design. John had such a heart. In fact, so much did he draw close to Christ that he became the picture of what happens when a man enters into the closest possible places of the Lord’s heart and mind. Jesus was the lover of John’s soul as he transformed the darkness of the state of selfish ambition into the light of the state of surrendered sonship in the image of the Pattern Son. And John wrote of the mystical union we are called to find in and with the Godhead—Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. John dared to lean upon Jesus to experience His heart and know His secrets. The Father through Jesus shared with John the very secrets of agape love—the love that God is in His being and ever exudes. Finally, God called John to write of the union of God with redeemed men and women in eternal marriage in the heavenly Jerusalem in time to come. There the curse from the fall in Eden will be no more and men will so know the intense love of God for them that they will fulfill the command to “Love the Lord your God with every passion of your heart, with all the energy of your being, and with every thought that is in you.”^[3] And the second, “Love your neighbor as much as you love yourself.”^[4] They will willingly serve Him as bondslaves—love slaves.