imagine the shekinah glory of a myriad suns at the cross
but imagine it as slowly beginning as on a normal day, and then slowly increasing the glory upon the Lamb of God as HE took our sins and the curse. See Isaiah 53

as Jesus received glory and power and honor to bear our sins and griefs and sorrrows and pains and sufferings
of all of us and all our situations and all our fears and broken hearts of all men brought to bear on one man in the space of a few hours, and He bore it all, without breaking

That took the glory power of God, and we did not see it,
but we can see it now . By faith.
Blessed are they who believed and have not seen.
I was in prayer about what God did when He saved us.
I was asking Him to reveal to me, to help me understand, what the actions were,
not just the nouns of theology,
that He accomplished in our Salvation. Sort of like, an Action approach. What did He do?
A verb form description instead of a noun form is what I wanted.

This is what I got. Love, Mercy, Acceptance, and Reconciliation:
Mercy includes not just forgiveness but also provision.

God Loved us
He Forgave us and Provided everything necessary for life and godliness.
He Accepted us while we were yet in sin.
To sum it up,
He Reconciled us to Himself, to His eternal loving plan. He did everything necessary on earth to bring to pass all the above.

Everything Jesus did on earth was the manifestation of God's plan for eternal salvation to those who believe.

At the cross was the finish of it all. All sin, all the curse, all things in sin came to Him like iron filings to a magnet, past, present and future things that would ever be, or ever had been. And in Him, all the power of all the curse was destroyed when His body died.

He became sin, that we might be made the righteousness of God. All sin , all things in sin, by sin, and of sin, and the curse came to Him at the cross.

All the emotional pain you ever suffered was in Him there at the cross.
All the sin you ever did was nailed to the cross in His flesh.
You know how hard it was for you to bear that heartach, that pain, remorse, grief in your life. Some people explode over their grief, shame, and sin. Have you ever been there. I have. That's how I came to learn this. I experienced a pain so great it was like sticking five sticks of dynamite in a watermelon and blowing it up, that's the way I felt. That was about the Fall of 1991. I felt like every cell in my body was in pain, and it was all from my heart, it was not from being in a car wreck, it was from things of the heart. Things that were 30 years old that I had finally come to understand.
Things that happened in 1961 and climaxed at Thanksgiving of that year to my shame and dishonor. And I bore the death of that for all the years in between. And I didn't even realize how much I bore, for I withdrew from the pain of it like a man withdrawing from a hot iron box that contains him. More could be said, but that story is not the point of this message, only the vehicle by which I learned.

And it hurt. Terribly much. It was in seeking healing help for this that I learned what I'm giving you here. The process took a few months, and the understanding has grown since. I wish that every person could have a book on these things of God.

Jesus bore it all, as the sin came upon Him, the power of God grew upon Him more and more enabling Him to endure. Imagine a wire carrying electric current, as it carries more and more it heats up, and glows brighter and brighter. He increased in glory there at the cross. His greatest act is hardly comprehended. Many people just see a man hanging on the cross. It was in truth the Son of God. In truth, the sin of all time came to Him during those hours and was also nailed to the cross in His flesh. Like locusts swarming to a field, like iron filings to a magnet, not all at once, but over the period of time He was nailed there, shedding His blood, until dead,... so sin and the curse came upon Him. To destroy once and for all the power of sin and give the benefit to all who would believe what was accomplished there. I guess all the years before, I knew He bore my sin at the cross. I knew He bore the sin of us all. But I didn't truely know He bore our pain, our grief, our suffering (even though I had read it in Isaiah 53) I didn't have the revelation. Hadn't seen the vision of my own griefs and sorrows being there for Him to bear. His greatest act of love was enduring that cross for us, and while He was nailed to it willingly taking upon Himself all the pain, all the guilt, all the emotional heart-break, tears, suffering, pain of each one of us, one by one. Just as the healing of your sin can come as you believe in Him and are baptized and you receive the gift of Eternal Life by faith in His work at the cross to pay the penalty of death for your sin: so also, the healing of your emotional-heart-break, can come as you acknowledge Him carrying your pain, your grief in His body to death at the cross. And as sure as the resurrection, in Him, all things are worked together for good.

Even the death of Christ was worked together for good by the Father. Imagine you were there in the crowd as He was led to the cross. You had been a follower of Jesus, and hoped in what He said. Then you saw the Romans about to crucify Him. Your friend, your hope, about to be nailed to a bunch of wood to bleed to death and die. The world thought that was the end, the end of Him, and His words: if you'd been standing there, you probably would have too. What could be worse for you? Yet, as we discover, God worked even that for good. So it is with every situation in your experience. God has a salvation plan for it. Only believe it was reconciled to God's eternal loving plan through Jesus crucified at the cross, where all things were reconciled.

Jesus said, it's recorded in John 12:32, And I, if I be lifted up from the earth, will draw all unto me.

I never even began to understand this scripture till sometime after 1980 a preacher said how often it is used to speak about preaching the gospel as a way of drawing people to Christ, but that truly the verse spoke of Jesus being lifted up on the cross. And that preacher gave scripture on what he was saying. Study more on the phrase   will draw all unto Me. You can go to a linked study by clicking your mouse on the under-lined text.

Before the world began, He planned it all, and in Christ He did it all and finished it at the cross. Now as you believe, Christ works it out in you and through you. For it is God who works in you.
Love, Mercy, Acceptance, and Reconciliation. Those four words properly understood. God who is love, Loved us
and in His love exercised His Mercy to forgive us and provide for us
and Accepted us
and did everything necessary to Reconcile us to Himself.

You may say, what do those words mean. What's so special here?
The answer is in the understanding.
Isaiah 41:20 instructs us to see, that we may know, and then consider (take it apart, analyze, and put it back together)
that we may understand all together (all the parts and the whole).
See, Know, Consider, and Understand ... is the Bible introduction to learning or teaching

Spent lot of years trying to learn about Love.
Lots of books say many things on this word.
Few hit the mark. Most are just lists of examples, and by their multitude of examples
try to say this is what love does in these circumstances. I remember looking for books on mercy and on love to give my children as they grew. Some were long catalog type lists of examples of various situational examples of what they called love. These left me with a sense of unfullfillment. They did not satisfy my need to understand. They were only examples in changing situations.

What does any action done in true love always have to qualify it as true love? What does the writer mean when he says, "...though I give my body to be burned and have not love, I gain nothing."? Bible ref 1 Cor 13:3

You can see, what I am saying here, that a man can do a thing that appears good, yet God says it did not qualify as LOVE. And another man can do the same thing, and it qualifies as love.

So it is not just the deed, but the heart reason and desire that motivated the deed. Therefore, a list of examples of what love did, does not easily teach us what love is.

One course I took at A&M, Logic, taught me about what they called "Operational Definitions". The teacher asked us what a chair is. Some replied with pictures of their chairs at home. Some were big, some were small, they all had different coverings of upholstery, different colors, shapes, and sizes. Functionally, they all offered support for sitting. When a chair OPERATES, it allows you to sit upon it and it supports you. Anything that does the function can be called a chair.

Well, this might all sound pretty simple and you may ask, why bother with so much detail on such obvious stuff?
Here's why. Once you or your child or student sees the concept on a simple and concrete example, then they can be prepared for abstract, non-tangible things. You see, it is my experience that few people have an operational definition of divine love. It's staring us right in the face, but I didn't see it for decades. And apparently, from the lack of teaching of the simplicity of it all at the cross, few others truly see it. Like the woman who touched the hem of Jesus' garment and was healed, because she comprehended who He is. The rest of the crowd was looking at Him, many were touching Him, but it requires faith comprehension of Him to receive. Let us understand. (Isaiah 41:20) Then can we receive.
The agape love Jesus expressed is not functionally understood by all too many children or adults.
They see the example of what He did, but too often fail to comprehend what defined or directed what He did.

Here is the functional, or operational definition of agape, divine love: IF the eagle is going to fly, it has to have two wings. The wings are self-sacrifice and seeking the other's good. (1 Cor 13:5 tells us love does not seek it's own) On the idea of self-sacrifice, consider Prov 24:10-12 and meditate upon them with the idea of putting yourself out to do what Jesus would do. You'll see, if you're willing to see, how God is telling us that people make excuses to themselves for not doing even the little things.
Agape kind of love is both self-sacrificial and seeking the other's good.
When you want to test your heart motives, those are the two criteria I see for divine love.
Consider a few man who runs into a burning building to rescue a child.
One does it because he knows he is expected to and to fail to try would discredit him in the eyes of people.
Another does it because he is trying to work his way to heaven with good works and figures this will get him a lot of points.
The man who gets an eternal reward for it is the one who lays his life on the line because of his desire to see good for the other person.
That's what Jesus did for us. In seeking our good, He sacrificed Himself.

Understanding divine love and how to test our ownselves by it, is a wonderful help in personal relationships. This is so important, it is covered with other writings. But teen-agers and spouses need to understand such things. When they are willing to hold the plumb-line of divine love up to their own thoughts and intents, it becomes a bright shining light to the right course of actions. But we cannot learn all things at once, so we will continue on the theme here of Salvation, the Action Approach.

So you see, love can have special understandings. Likewise, other words used in scripture can have special meanings, not necessarily the same as in popular literature.

Scripture defines words by context. It can be compared to a set of simultaneous equations, where the whole text defines each variable, word.
Some object to such strictness, but scripture says "...every word of God is pure, refined seven times..."
So who are we to believe, God or the world's idea?

Another course taught the exactness of math concepts. It's method of teaching was to have the students write a math book based upon totally new definitions, then give a problem that could only be solved by ignoring everything else you had learned except that one book. You had to take that one book as it explained the new rules and use it's rules to get the correct understanding of the answer. That's the way I see the Bible. God tells us His way. The world tells us "their" way. And the two are very different.

Mercy... is the second most important concept. His mercy is over all His works.
Psalm 145:9
God does not touch us until after He first exercises Mercy, else we would be consumed.
His mercy is over all His works. Draw a circle and put all His works toward you inside that circle of Mercy.
Like the sky covering the earth, His mercies cover you.
Just take out your concordance and study every verse with mercy in it. I have put together a 150 page study on all the Hebrew and all the Greek words ever translated in the KJV as mercy. Knowing the mercies of God will change lives. His mercy is too often people seek only after they think they have done a terrible thing and need to be forgiven. In truth, His mercy is much more than just a forgiveness we seek after murdering someone.
And too many people only seek His mercy after they think they've done something especially terrible.

As we know the fullness of His mercy, we can live by faith therein.
Like the green olive tree planted by the river of water, we flourish as we trust in the mercy of God through Christ.
Psalm 52:8

It is through His mercy that we are enabled to receive everything else He provides and does for us.

This is shown by the Mercy Lid on top of the Ark of the Covenant.
Three items are in the Ark of the Covenant, the law and the rod that budded and the golden pot of manna was under the Mercy Lid.

The golden pot of manna is His provision.
The rod that budded is new life.
The tablets of the law leads us to repentance and receiving the other two.

Big point is this, mercy is not just forgiveness. In it's full sense, connected with the same root word used for womb, it is the taking away of all that causes death and the giving of all necessary for life. See your Strong's Concordance for racham and rechem, H7355 , H7356 and H7358. Same root word used for womb and for mercy. Consider what the womb does. The babe earns none of the help, neither the removing of the toxic wastes, death dealing poisons, which are taken away by the blood, nor the giving of the food, also by the life giving blood. All the forgiveness of the toxicity and all the giving of the life is by the fullness of the rachem of the womb, the mercy of the womb. That, my friend, is the big picture, the original picture of the mercy of God. Forgives and removes everything that would cause death, and gives everything necessary for life. I'm awe struck.
Not only His forgiveness, but also His provision is through His mercy.
This important understanding is shown somewhat by the figure of the green olive tree in Psalm 52:8

The next word is ACCEPTANCE. This is another verb, to accept. Like a loving parent picks up a filthy baby in its vomit and diarrhea. God accepted us while we were yet in sin. Acceptance should be taught as a major understanding. Unless we accept what God did for us, how can one receive it? Unless God works in us to accept His truth, how can it be received? Unless we accept His judgment upon our sinful actions, how can we know they are sinful? Unless we accept His conviction of our sins, how can we have godly sorrow for them? Unless we accept the truth of eternal salvation, how can we know the joy of our salvation? Unless we accept the truth of our situation, how can we confess in agreement with God that it was reconciled at the cross? Acceptance of the truth, both of sin and of righteousness, is necessary. From there we go on to accept not only the truth, but one another, as Christ has also accepted us. Important connected thoughts on this are:
God made us acceptable in the beloved.
Accept one another as God has accepted you.... for Christ's sake.
He accepted us while we were yet in sin. He did not wait for us to get perfect. He accepted us while we were in sin. Like a father picking up the dirty baby covered with baby puke and vomit and needing clean diapers.

Can you accept people in mercy with love as God did?
God did all this and did everything necessary to bring it all to pass in reconciling us to Himself through Christ Jesus and His shed blood, crucified at that cross.
Colossians 1:20

The word RECONCILIATION is used here in the totally big sense of everything God did in His total plan of Salvation to reconcile us to Himself.
After you accept someone, or something, some situation, also do what is necessary to reconcile things.
Much more to say, but it is in the teaching. I have given you the overview. From here the rest can grow in understanding. You can also get the material to further help you see these wonderful truths.
Tell your children, your family and friends, ... every word of God is pure, refined seven time... and His word endures to all generations.... He meant what HE said, and He preserved that truth for you and yours.
Psalm 100:5 Psalm 145:13 Psalm 12:6 Amen.