Photo by Will Humes
I don’t pretend to understand God’s love. I know enough about God’s love to share the story with others, but I am too unlike God to fully comprehend it.
To understand the love of God completely, one would have to be God. One would have to have done what Jesus did.
We know one thing absolutely.
God loves us.
The Bible tells us that:
“There is none righteous, not even one;
“There is none who understands,
“There is none who seeks for God;
“All have turned aside, together they have become useless;
“There is none who does good,
“There is not even one.”
This information is given to us in the Old and the New Testaments (Ps. 14, Romans 3)
Sounds pretty bad, huh?
Then there’s the Love of God.
I think if the world really understood it, we wouldn’t be in the mess in which we find ourselves.
I don’t understand it fully. That is the problem I have.
Jesus knew why He came into the world.
“And being in agony He was praying very fervently; and His sweat became like drops of blood, falling down upon the ground.” (Luke 22)
His burden came from you and me and from everyone who has ever existed.
Jesus came into the world because of our sin.
A recent Mel Gibson movie that I never saw made an effort to depict the physical suffering of Jesus.
I’m told the movie did a good job of it.
The agony, the drops of blood in the garden, didn’t come from the knowledge of the physical treatment He would receive.
The agony came from the weight of the world that was on His shoulders.
The weight of the world’s sin was on His shoulders.
The pain of the crucifixion was infinitely minute compared to the weight of the sins that He bore.
“He Himself bore our sins in His body on the cross.” (1 Peter 2:24)
This is the love of God. This is why Christians celebrate His birth.
Without Christ we are lost.
But, nothing can separate us from the love of God.
“For I am convinced that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers, nor height, nor depth, nor any other created thing, will be able to separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord. (Romans 8:38-39)
Again I ask why. Why did Jesus do it?
I’ve mentioned the love of God. There is an accompanying answer.
The verse from 1 Peter that I’ve quoted above has an interesting finish.
“He Himself bore our sins in His body on the cross…
so that we might die to sin and live to righteousness; for by His wounds you were healed.”
Thus, we know the “why.”
1 John 1:9 tells us the “how.”
If we confess our sins, He is faithful and righteous to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.
What a promise! What a blessing! What love!
I will never understand God’s love fully, but I understand enough.
The sinless baby placed in a feeding trough is the way, the truth, and the life.
What a gift!!!
Photo by wintersoul1
Merry Christmas.
Chris Reimers
Wings of the Wind 
well said chris,it brings us up short every day. It is also the most powerful force in the universe. His love,that calls us to Hinds feet in high places.
This reminds me of a message in John 21. Might have to dig it up and share it.
Mannyr
Thanks Manny.
How blessed we are. We are so imperfect and yet so loved.
Would love to see that message from John 21 someday.
God’s blessings…