Love
This has fascinated my thoughts today. What is Love? What does it mean to Love someone? How is it that Love can cause someone to be intensely happy and then can also cause someone to feel intense hurt and pain? Love motivates us to do amazing and crazy things. Many songs, plays, movies, books, paintings, pictures, poems, dances, and letters have been devoted to love.
Love is a part of every human being. We all know what love is. Webster says that love is 'an intense feeling of deep affection,' 'a deep romantic or sexual attachment to someone'.
This romantic kind of love, however, is not the love that was captivating my thoughts. Although I have a deep desire to some day meet the girl that I will love unconditionally forever, it was a different kind of love that I was pondering. I tried to understand this Love, but I couldn't quite figure it out. This Love doesn't seem to make any sense, or maybe this is a more complete love than I have ever known. This Love is so contrary to almost everything in me. I don't understand it, but I pray that God would continue to reveal to me the depths of this Love--This Love so amazing.
It's easy to love someone when they love you back, but it becomes extremely hard to love someone who pretends you don't exist. How do you love someone who deeply wounds you so often. How can you forgive them over and over again? How can you ever forget all the things that they have done to you? How can you hear so many hurtful words and then respond with, "I love you"? How can you love someone so unconditionally, that it doesn't matter what they do, you will still be there waiting with open arms for them to come back to you?
This Love is the Love that has consumed my mind all day.
I wonder, is it possible for a sinful, rebellious finite being to love like this? Can we even fully understand this Love? I feel like I am so far from comprehending this Love! And I am even further away from being able to love like this.
"Be imitators of God, therefore, as dearly loved children." Ephesians 5:1
So as followers of Christ, we are to imitate Him and follow his example. But how exactly did Christ show his love for us? He "made himself nothing, taking the very nature of a servant, being made in human likeness. And being found in appearance as a man, he humbled himself and became obedient to death—even death on a cross!" Philippians 2:7-8 Jesus humbled himself, giving up his glorious throne next to the Father. He stepped into humanity, becoming a mortal man and choosing to live among rebellious, sinful, and depraved humans. But the God of the universe did not choose to live among the rulers or kings of the earth, but rather, Jesus Christ decided to spend his days with those who were the least in the eyes world. The God who created the world and everything in it washed the feet of twelve dirty men who He deeply loved. And after giving himself to serve us for thirty three years, healing our every disease and meeting our every need, we return the favor by spitting in his face! We cursed him! We mocked him! We tore the skin and flesh off of his back! We made a crown of thorns and beat it into his head! We nailed his hands and feet to the cross where he slowly and painfully suffocated to death, all the while Jesus Christ was supplying each and every one of us with the breath to continue living!
Jesus said, "Father, forgive them, for they do not know what they are doing." Luke 23:34
How can Jesus say that? How can he just forgive us? It doesn't make any sense! After all we have done to him, after all that we are going to do to him! Its not fair that I can murder a perfect, pure, innocent and holy man and walk away not only innocent, but also righteous in the eyes of God! Why would Jesus Christ die so that this pathetic, sorry little excuse for a person could live?
The answer is Love.
Jesus loves me! He really loves me! "For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life." John 3:16
Although I know that I am alive today because Christ loved me, I cannot comprehend this Love.
But I pray that God would help me "grasp how wide and long and high and deep is the love of Christ." Ephesians 3:18
