To fall in love with Jesus is to have your heart brought to life. 1 John 4:19 states, “We love because he first loved us” meaning our love is a response to His. But, what is love? In a world that can often define love as an uncontrollable emotion, God gives a different definition…a choice.
“This is love: not that we loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son as an atoning sacrifice for our sins” – 1 John 4:10
There is not one of us who is deserving of God’s love. Paul wrote in Romans, “For all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God”. Each of us have made choices that God would not have us make. We have chosen to place ourselves above our Creator, following dead hearts bent toward self.
We were not created to be our own gods but to worship, bring glory to and commune with The One True God. There is nothing more beautiful than being made for Jesus and in truth, each of us are. We have each been created with dignity and value in the image of God. The initial rebellion and fall in the Garden of Eden distorted our worship and the primary purpose in which we were created. Suddenly, self became our center rather than God, sin entered in, and death loomed. We became separated from The Life.
Without hesitation and knowing the cost, God promised a Savior. It is not our Father’s heart that we should be separated from Him, even as we did not choose to love Him first. One of my favorite characteristics of God is that He is a promise-keeping, covenant God. When He promises a savior, you better believe He will deliver. Yet, our Savior is not what was expected. He is far greater.
“He had no beauty or majesty to attract us to him, nothing in his appearance that we should desire him. He was despised and rejected by mankind, a man of suffering, and familiar with pain. Like one from whom people hide their faces. He was despised, and we held him in low esteem.” – Isaiah 53: 2-3
Jesus entered in.
The Son of Man did not come to be served but to serve. The Gospels are rich with accounts of a man who lived a life none of us are capable of. He didn’t just follow the law, he lived it from the heart. He perfectly loved both God and people. He saw the overlooked, healed the sick, called the least-likely of candidates into fellowship. He lived pure, in reverent submission to his Father’s will. He caught the tears of those who were rejected, had patience with the brash, and corrected those who were wrong. He fulfilled the law in its entirety, then took our place under God’s wrath.
Jesus is the only person to be undeserving of God’s wrath. And make no mistake, Jesus was a person, the God-Man. He was flesh and blood. There was a significant cost to the cross. It is not a metaphor, we have a God who decided to lay down his life for us on a Roman cross built to torture those sentenced to death. As he was about to give his final breath, Jesus said “Tetelestai”, meaning our debt was paid in full, the battle was finished, and God’s wrath was satisfied. But, that wasn’t the end.
“Surely he took up our pain and bore our suffering, yet we considered him punished by God, stricken by him, and afflicted. But he was pierced for our transgressions, he was crushed for our iniquities; the punishment that brought us peace was on him, and by his wounds we are healed” – Isaiah 53: 4-5
Jesus rose from the dead.
If Jesus did not rise from the dead, we would not have hope. When Jesus rose from the dead He proved himself to be God and His teachings to be true. His resurrection confirms that the price He paid for our sin was enough. There is nothing that we can add to the finished work of the cross, He ransomed us in full.
We are saved by grace, through faith in Jesus. He has promised us eternity, made us children of God, invites us to follow Him, creates in us new hearts, and seals us with The Holy Spirit. He gives us the opportunity to walk in fellowship with Him on both sides of heaven. He will come back to take us home, not because of our righteousness but because of His. Truly, He has gifted us grace upon grace.
We do not serve to attain right standing with God. Jesus already did this for us. We serve because He loves us. When we meditate on the Gospel, on Jesus’ love for His creation, we are spurred into action. We know that there is nothing we can do to make Jesus love us more than He does right now. We are fully and wholeheartedly loved by a perfect God.
Still, He invites us to follow Him, to live and love the way He did. And how can we not? He has given us everything we will ever need..Himself.
By: Raegan Duke, Communications Specialist