God Passionately Loves You. Do you love him? – Easter, part 1
Do you passionately love God? He personally and passionately loves you! This Easter message reveals God’s unconditional, selfless, no-strings-attached love that motivated Jesus to lay down his life for you! He suffered and died to bring you in direct relationship with God. God has a plan for your life and he will never stop loving you. Will you choose to follow, obey, and love him in return?
Unconditional, Selfless, No-Strings-Attached Love
Jesus Suffered & Died to Bring You in Direct Relationship with God
God personally and passionately loves you. God passionately loves all the world.
“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, NIV).
God’s love for you motivated Jesus to lay down his life for you. Jesus faced the cross and was nailed to a cross out of his love for you. He bled and died that you, and whoever believes, might not perish but have eternal life.
Jesus is the example of how we are to love and serve one another. Jesus was willing to be beaten and nailed to a cross because he loves you. Jesus paid the debt of sin you owed, that you could never repay yourself. Even if you were to live a million years or had all the money in the world, you would never have enough money or be able to be good enough to enter heaven on your own merits. The scriptures are clear: good deeds will not entitle you entry into heaven. It is only by the blood of Christ that we are redeemed from sin and death.
It is Jesus’ death and resurrection that we celebrate on Easter Sunday. Easter Sunday is also known as Resurrection Sunday. It represents how God’s love for you, and whoever will believe, saves. The nails in his hands and feet are what held Jesus physically on the cross, but it was his love for you that kept him on the cross.
Jesus’ disciples remember the words Jesus spoke regarding a new commandment.
“A new command I give you: Love one another. As I have loved you, so you must love one another. 35 By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you love one another” (John 13:34-35).
That same commandment is for us today. We are to love as Jesus loved, and by doing so the world will know that we are a Christians. The world will recognize that you are a believer and follower of Christ the Lord as you love one another.
The love of God for you is witnessed in the life of Jesus.
“Whoever does not love does not know God, because God is love. 9 This is how God showed his love among us: He sent his one and only Son into the world that we might live through him. 10 This is love: not that we loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son as an atoning sacrifice for our sins” (1 John 4:8-10).
Jesus Is the Gift We Didn’t Know We Needed
Loving others as Christ loved you is a sacrificial love. It is a love that places others’ good before yourself. It is a love that calls for our desires to be set aside to see others come to the knowledge of Christ the Lord.
All throughout Jesus’ earthly ministry, Jesus tells parables and stories to help people understand the truth of God. There is a parable in Matthew 21 that speaks to why God the Father sends Jesus to the earth.
Over the centuries, God has sent many people to proclaim the message of God’s love. Yet the world has refused to believe. John the Baptist was the latest person that God sent, just prior to Jesus and he was killed.
‘“For John came to you to show you the way of righteousness, and you did not believe him, but the tax collectors and the prostitutes did. And even after you saw this, you did not repent and believe him.
33 Listen to another parable: There was a landowner who planted a vineyard. He put a wall around it, dug a winepress in it and built a watchtower. Then he rented the vineyard to some farmers and moved to another place. 34 When the harvest time approached, he sent his servants to the tenants to collect his fruit. 35 The tenants seized his servants; they beat one, killed another, and stoned a third. 36 Then he sent other servants to them, more than the first time, and the tenants treated them the same way. 37 Last of all, he sent his son to them. ‘They will respect my son,’ he said. 38 But when the tenants saw the son, they said to each other, ‘This is the heir. Come, let’s kill him and take his inheritance.’ 39 So they took him and threw him out of the vineyard and killed him.
40 Therefore, when the owner of the vineyard comes, what will he do to those tenants?” 41 “He will bring those wretches to a wretched end,” they replied, “and he will rent the vineyard to other tenants, who will give him his share of the crop at harvest time”’ (Matthew 21:32-41).
The landowner in this parable is God the Father. The farmers are the Israelites and people of the world. The son is Jesus. Jesus is sent by God to show his love, and when he is rejected, God will deal with those who refused to believe.
The farmers in this parable think they have it all together. They think they are without sin. People down the ages have a had similar mindset. “Well, my sins aren’t as bad as their sins.” However, the Bible tells us that we are all guilty of sin. We have all fallen short of God’s glorious standard for humanity. Therefore, we need a savior to save us. That’s why God sent Jesus.
Jesus is the gift that God sent to all humanity to show all creation just how much he loved us. Jesus is the gift we didn’t know we needed, but learned we cannot truly live without.
The 10 commandments were not given to become rules to be kept in order to gain heaven. Instead, they were given to reveal that we are all sinners and in need of a Savior.
God Has Unconditional, Selfless, No-String-Attached, Passionate Love for You
John the Baptist and prophets of old were sent by God to point us to Jesus. The Old Testament looks forward toward a Messiah and the cross. In the New Testament, we look back to Jesus and the cross where Jesus died and paid the debt of sin we could never pay ourselves.
God sending his one and only son, and Jesus dying on the cross is God’s act of perfect Love; unconditional, sacrificial, selfless, passionate love for you. This is the type of love that we are to display to others. The same love Jesus has shown us, we are to display and have for others, both within and outside the church. This a humble, forgiving, without strings attached kind of love.
In Philippians 2 we see the unconditional, humble love Jesus displayed both as he walked on earth and when he hung on the cross.
“In your relationships with one another, have the same mindset as Christ Jesus: 6 Who, being in very nature God, did not consider equality with God something to be used to his own advantage; 7 rather, he made himself nothing by taking the very nature of a servant, being made in human likeness. 8 And being found in appearance as a man, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to death—even death on a cross!
9 Therefore God exalted him to the highest place and gave him the name that is above every name, 10 that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, in heaven and on earth and under the earth, 11 and every tongue acknowledge that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father” (Philippians 2:5-11).
The Apostle Paul calls each of us to have the same attitude or mindset as Christ.
The Son of God took on the very nature of a servant and humbled himself as he was obedient—even to death—on a cross.
Will You Choose to Humbly Obey?
No one is perfect. Only Jesus was perfect and yet Paul calls us to have the same attitude the same mindset as Jesus. This is where the grace and forgiveness of God is shown to you. We are to live our lives humbly before the Lord and others, displaying a life of love and forgiveness.
When we sin, let us repent from sin and seek the Lord with all our hearts. As we seek the Lord’s forgiveness, we choose to turn from our sin. Listen closely. God’s grace and forgiveness are not a license to sin again and again. God’s grace is not to be taken lightly.
In John 5 we learn of a man who had an infirmity for 38 years. Jesus asks him if he wanted to be healed. The man responds to Jesus saying he had no one to place him in the pool of water to be healed. Jesus heals the man on the Sabbath, telling the man to take up his bead and walk. The man was healed that day. The Jews were not concerned for the man, and didn’t care that the man was physically healed. What the Jews focused on was the fact that Jesus healed the man on the sabbath.
To the Jew, Jesus broke a commandment by healing the man and “working “on the sabbath. The religious Jews were focused on the wrong thing and missed what was important. The Son of God, the Messiah stood before them. They were in the presence of the Messiah, the one they were looking for. They were spiritually blind to how important Jesus was.
Later Jesus finds the man in the temple and Jesus tells him:
“Behold, thou art made whole: sin no more, lest a worse thing come unto thee” (John 5:14, KJV).
The same is true for us. When we come to Christ, we become spiritually whole, no longer separated from God due to sin. We are redeemed from the bondage of sin and death. Because we are redeemed, we are to strive to sin no more. Instead, we are to walk and live humbly before the Lord and to serve and love one another, giving glory to God the remainder of our lives. When you choose to sin or refuse to love one another, you are not glorifying God with your life. You are not displaying the same attitude of Christ that you are called to display.
Consider what Paul says in Romans 6:
“What shall we say, then? Shall we go on sinning so that grace may increase? 2 By no means! We are those who have died to sin; how can we live in it any longer?” (Romans 6:1-2, NIV).
If we are to live and follow Christ with all our hearts, we are to live dead to sin and alive in Christ. If we are to have the same mindset as Jesus, we will then humbly obey the Lord. Jesus humbled himself in obedience to God and died a criminal’s death on a cross.
How important is obedience and how can we achieve it?
Obedience may cost you sometimes. And yet obedience is better than sacrifice (1 Samuel 15:22). True obedience to God will occur when you choose to love and humbly serve the Lord and others.
What is humility?
Humility is about putting others before yourself. It’s not about thinking less of yourself, it’s literally thinking about yourself, less. It is focusing your time, energy, and thoughts on the Lord and others. It means becoming more “we” focused and less “me” focused. Humility is powerful because being selfish is our normal operating procedure.
Jesus taught us to break from the norm and be radical, by loving others and putting God first in our lives. It starts with how you think, and it will develop into selfless acts of service for others, and it continues in obedience to fulfill the calling of Christ in your life.
Jesus knew he was innocent of the charges that the religious leaders accused him of. Pilate knew Jesus did not deserve to be crucified on a cross and to die as a criminal.
Standing before a crowd of accusers, Pilate says:
‘“What shall I do, then, with the one you call the king of the Jews?” Pilate asked them. 13 “Crucify him!” they shouted. 14 “Why? What crime has he committed?” asked Pilate. But they shouted all the louder, “Crucify him!”
15 Wanting to satisfy the crowd, Pilate released Barabbas to them. He had Jesus flogged, and handed him over to be crucified’ (Mark 15:12-15).
Jesus chooses not to say a word in his defense. On the Mount of Olives Jesus prayed these words found in Luke 22. Jesus trusted God and was focused on doing the will of God and he put aside his own wishes. Choosing to humbly obey God is not always easy, but I believe God will give each of us the strength and courage to obey in much the same manner as we see in Luke 22.
‘“Father, if you are willing, take this cup from me; yet not my will, but yours be done.” 43 An angel from heaven appeared to him and strengthened him. 44 And being in anguish, he prayed more earnestly, and his sweat was like drops of blood falling to the ground’ (Luke 22:42-44).
Jesus’ obedience reveals his love and trust in God. Eternal life comes for all who will believe because of Jesus’ obedience, pain, suffering, and death.
There is something humbling about realizing how incapable we are to save ourselves. We are called to entrust that part to Jesus’ sacrifice.
Jesus told the one who was crucified next to him, the one who called out to him, a word of grace and hope.
“Truly I tell you, today you will be with me in paradise” (Luke 23:43).
What Does Obedience Look Like for Us Day by Day?
It is bowing before Christ every day on our knees, inviting him into our story and thanking him for his sacrificial love.
It was Jesus’ obedience to the Father and his sacrificial love for you that cost Christ his very life so that you might have new life in Christ; eternal life with him in glory.
“And we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose. 29 For those God foreknew he also predestined to be conformed to the image of his Son, that he might be the firstborn among many brothers and sisters” (Romans 8:28-29).
God has a plan for your life, only trust him and believe. Know that God passionately loves you.
“As the Father has loved me, so have I loved you. Now remain in my love. 10 If you keep my commands, you will remain in my love, just as I have kept my Father’s commands and remain in his love. 11 I have told you this so that my joy may be in you and that your joy may be complete. 12 My command is this: Love each other as I have loved you. 13 Greater love has no one than this: to lay down one’s life for one’s friends” (John 15:9-13).
‘As it is written: “For your sake we face death all day long; we are considered as sheep to be slaughtered.”
37 No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us. 38 For I am convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither the present nor the future, nor any powers, 39 neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord’ (Romans 8:36-39).
Do You Passionately Love Him?
“And so we know and rely on the love God has for us. God is love. Whoever lives in love lives in God, and God in them. 17 This is how love is made complete among us so that we will have confidence on the day of judgment: In this world we are like Jesus” (1 John 4:16-17).
Do you passionately love him? Decide today to love the Lord as passionately as he loves you.
What happens when you place Jesus first in your life?
You will love others like he loves you.
You will find obedience to the things of God to be a joy.
Humbly serve the Lord with all your heart—what others may call a sacrifice—and you will see it as an act of joyful service to the Lord.
Easter is coming soon. Easter, Resurrection Sunday, is the day Jesus rose from the dead.
‘“Where, O death, is your victory? Where, O death, is your sting?” 56 The sting of death is sin, and the power of sin is the law. 57 But thanks be to God! He gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ’ (1 Corinthians 15:55-57).
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