We love each other because he loved us first. 1 John 4:19
For many years in American culture, love has been
portrayed as a feeling that overcomes you.
It includes weak knees, unexplainable loss of appetite, head-in-the-clouds,
and that goofy look on your face. That
is not really love, but rather it is romance, a kind of lust-driven
drunkenness.
Love is also not doing things for other people because
you have the means and they don’t. That
is simply what many nice people do out of compassion, at best. A lesser motive is that we fear being like
the poor folks; our generosity is to appease whatever gods control the
distribution of stuff. Christian love is
doing what other people need most, simply because truth and integrity demand
it.
I went back to Michigan State for the homecoming parade
last year, I was the grand marshal and I was riding in the backseat of this
car. The people were yelling, but they
weren't saying, 'Go, State, go!' One
side of the street was yelling, Tastes great' and the other side
was yelling Less filling. Everyone
in the stands is drunk. It was like I
was contributing to alcohol, and I don't drink. It made me realize I was doing something I
didn't want to do. I was with my
brother, Tody, who is my agent. I told
him, Tody, I'll never do another Lite beer commercial. I loved doing the commercials, but I didn't
like the effect it was having on a lot of little people.
Everything that makes a believer act unselfishly,
truthfully, and compassionately is motivated by the Master’s love. We love because he first loved us:
He could hear the crowds screaming "crucify, crucify". He could hear the hatred in their voices. These were his chosen people. He loved them, and they were going to crucify
him. He was beaten, bleeding and
weakened; his heart was broken, but still He walked. He could see the crowd as he came from the
palace. He knew each of the faces so
well. He had created them. He knew every smile, laugh, and shed tear, but
now they were contorted with rage and anger...his heart broke; But still He walked. Was he scared? You and I would have been, so his humanness
would have mandated that he was. He felt
alone. His disciples had left, denied,
and even betrayed him. He searched the
crowd for a loving face and he saw very few.
Then he turned his eyes to the only one that mattered, and he knew that
he would never be alone. He looked back
at the crowd, at the people who were spitting at him, throwing rocks at him,
and mocking him, and he knew that because of him, they would never be alone. So
for them, He walked. The sounds of the
hammer striking the spikes echoed through the crowd. The sounds of his cries
echoed even louder; the cheers of the crowd, as his hands and feet were nailed
to the cross intensified with each blow.
Loudest of all was the still small voice inside his heart that whispered
I am with you, my son. And
God's heart broke. He had let his son
walk.
Jesus could have asked God to end his suffering, but
instead he asked God to forgive. Not to
forgive him, but to forgive the ones who were persecuting him. As he hung on that cross, dying an
unimaginable death, he looked out and saw, not only the faces in the crowd, but
also, the face of every person yet to be, and his heart filled with love. As his body was dying, his heart was alive; alive
with the limitless, unconditional love he feels for each of us. (author unknown)
For You Today
There are about 2,500 devotional
posts and 400 sermons in the Rocky Road Devotions
library. To dig deeper explore
some of these: Condemned
in the Shadows and Table
Talk
Title Image:
Pixabay.com Images without citation are in public domain.
Unless noted, Scripture quoted from The New Living
Translation©
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