Have you ever doubted God’s love for you? If so, consider the following. It may help.
According to the Scriptures, “God demonstrates His own love for us in that while we were yet sinners Christ died for us” (Romans 5:8). Note that Christ died for us, not because of us. There is an important difference between those two words. The word “because” suggests responsibility. Your neighbor might say “Because you dropped my expensive glass you are responsible to replace it.” He would not say some other neighbor was responsible because you are the one who broke the glass.
In the same way, Jesus was not responsible for our debt. He had no obligation to intervene in our situation. He was an innocent bystander who volunteered to pay the debt that was our responsibility for us. He was not forced to do so by the Father. That would have been as unjust as your neighbor forcing another neighbor to pay for the glass you broke. Jesus would have remained perfectly righteous and beloved by the Father if He had said, “No! I’m not the one who dropped the glass. Why should I have to pay for it?” But that is not how the story went. We did a lot more than drop a glass and He paid for it with a lot more than money.
What’s more, it wasn’t just for pity’s sake that He did it. Not just mercy. Not just compassion. It was pure love! Love stronger than the most intense love of lovers. Love stronger than the deepest love of a parent. Love stronger than the greatest love you can imagine. A love that not only rescued us but made us adopted children and fellow heirs.
The more I think about the Lord’s love for me, the less sense it makes. When I think of how many times I chose to mind my own business when someone else was in trouble, or stood there as a passive observer, thanking God I wasn’t in that person’s shoes, it makes no sense to me that Jesus would put Himself in the middle of my trouble and make the death sentence – that was justly mine – His own.
Though God’s day-to-day ways remain unpredictable and sometimes confusing to me, when I compare my greatest demonstration of love for Him to His greatest demonstration of love for me… Why not compare a lighted match to a California wildfire.
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