Jesus the King: Understanding the Life and Death of the Son of God

by Timothy J. Keller

But the triune God already had that—and he received love within himself in a far purer, more powerful form than we human beings can ever give him. So why would he create us? There’s only one answer. He must have created us not to get joy but to give it. He must have created us to invite us into the dance, to say: If you glorify me, if you center your entire life on me, if you find me beautiful for who I am in myself, then you will step into the dance, which is what you are made for. You are made not just to believe in me or to be spiritual in some general way, not just to pray and get a bit of inspiration when things are tough. You are made to center everything in your life on me, to think of everything in terms of your relationship to me. To serve me unconditionally. That’s where you’ll find your joy. That’s what the dance is about. Are you in the dance or do you just believe God is out there somewhere? Are you in the dance or do you just pray to God every so often when you’re in trouble? Are you in the dance or are you looking around for someone to orbit around you? If life is a divine dance, then you need more than anything else to be in it. That’s what you’re built for. You are made to enter into a divine dance with the Trinity. Dancing into Battle Immediately after Jesus’s baptism, he finds himself in the wilderness. Mark writes: At once the Spirit sent him out into the desert, and he was in the desert forty days, being tempted by Satan. He was with the wild animals ....