As I sat this morning, drinking my coffee and reflecting on God’s goodness to me I thought of the baby in a manger. I know Christmas is over and some have moved on to the next holiday. However, for me it is always a season where I get so busy I must force myself to sit and reflect. I glanced up, and my attention was captured by a crystal cross sitting on a shelf. Immediately my thoughts went to what Christ had done for me. This miraculous birth that we celebrate at Christmas, was the beginning of an earthly life that led Jesus to this cruel cross. I will never understand why God chose to send His Son to redeem me. If I had been God, I would have wiped the earth clean, and started all over. I would not sacrifice either of my sons for people who had no desire to please and love me.
John 3:16 gives us an explanation for the reason. He loved us! That is a love I cannot fathom. That anyone, especially a perfect God, could love me enough to endure unjust cruel punishment, humiliation, and death designed only for the worst of criminals.
John 3:16“For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life.”
His death defines love. It was a substitutionary death. In other words, He took my place. He was taking what I deserved, and turning away the wrath of God. In I Peter 2:24, Peter tells us, when he was reviled, accused of being a seditious man, a deceiver, charged with being in the league with Beelzebub, the devil himself, and He was condemned as a blasphemer of God, He did not return anything in retaliation. He committed himself to His Father, the one who is the just judge, and became our substitute.
I Peter 2:23 “Who, when he was reviled, reviled not again; when he suffered, he threatened not; but committed himself to him that judgeth righteously:”
This is the ultimate example of what love means. He calls us to love this way also. To walk in the same kind of life-laying-down-love. In I John 3:16, the writer explains that just as He laid down His life for us, we are to lay down our lives for fellow Christians. We are told to not love in word, but in what we do. But wait, I John 3:16 tells us to lay down our lives for our brothers. Jesus gave His life for His enemies! As good as we think we are, Romans 5:7-8 says we before salvation, are His enemies.
I John 3:16-18 “By this we know love, that he laid down his life for us, and we ought to lay down our lives for the brothers. But if anyone has the world’s goods and sees his brother in need, yet closes his heart against him, how does God’s love abide in him? Little children, let us not love in word or talk but in deed and in truth.”
Romans 5:7-8 “For one will scarcely die for a righteous person—though perhaps for a good person one would dare even to die—but God shows his love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us.”
His death forgave our sins, it purchased a life for us that will never perish, if we will accept what He did for us, repent, and follow Him. He gave us the perfect pattern for living a life of love. His actions bore our guilt but also showed us how to love in a selfless way. Not thinking about what we will gain from a relationship, but what can we give to a relationship. It is a love that teaches me how to love those who hate me, to be kind to my enemies, to pray for my enemies. It is a love that does not come naturally, but supernaturally.
My reflection this morning brought me to a point of how I am to love others. I am to love in a way that others think of Christ when they see me. If they don’t know Christ it should cause them to ask, “what is it about you that causes you to love the way you do?” When you achieve this kind of reaction you will know you have become a little more like the Christ that paid it all for you on that cruel cross.
I pray that I never get over the feeling I have this morning when I see a cross. I pray that the cross doesn’t become common to me. I pray that each time I see one, I will remember that I am to be like the one who bore that cross for me.
Excellent