Do you admire Christ? - Horatius Bonar

“And there are also many other things which Jesus did, which if they were written in detail, I suppose that even the world itself would not contain the books that would be written.” - John 21:25

“The sentiment like this comes well from the pen of John. It is the utterance of his admiration for His Lord. He writes as one lost in exulting amazement at the matchless glories of Him whose love he had so richly tasted, & whose Divine perfections he had so fully seen. He is closing the wondrous history of the “Word made flesh”; & in looking back upon that record, he feels that the half has not been told, nay, cannot be told. It is too long, too large, too marvelous, too glorious a story for earth. And this thought, pressing upon his soul, calls up the deepest feelings of his nature, so that, in summing up the Divine record, he cannot but give vent to these feelings in one solemn burst of triumphant admiration! (John 21:25)

Ah! Is this intense, this absorbing, this rapturous admiration, ours? Do we not greatly lack it in these days? Is there not a most unaccountable failure here? It is not love I speak of, it is not reverence, it is admiration —admiration for the Person & works of Jesus! We confess Christ, but do we admire Him? We make use of Him, we draw on Him, we honor Him, we love Him,—but do we admire Him? Where is there in us the Apostle's admiration for His glorious Person and marvelous works?

It is from the unwritten wonders of the Lord that the Apostle's admiration springs. On the written wonders of His life, faith rests itself; as we read, "These are written that ye might believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God" (John. 20:31); but it is at the thought of the unwritten wonders of His life that admiration rises to such a height. The recorded wonders are but a specimen, a sample, no more. They are but one beam of the marvelous radiance that streamed from this "day-star," when here below; and if one gleam be so bright, what must the full effulgence be, —what must be the orb from which the effulgence comes? They are but one leaf of the wondrous tree, "the Plant of Renown"; and if one leaf be so fair and excellent, what must that tree be from which it has been plucked ?

Even were that which is recorded all He did and spoke, He would be marvelous and loveable indeed. How much more when these are but specimens of His exceeding wisdom, and power, and glory! Perfect, beyond all our ideas of perfection; good, beyond all our ideas of goodness, must He have been!”

Horatius Bonar, The Unwritten Wonders of the Grace of Christ