Living Loved: How embracing Christ’s Love transforms us.

Human love, although truly wonderful, can be fickle. However much we are loved by family members and friends, it is a rare love indeed that is agape love, a love that accepts us for who we are, warts and all: an unconditional love. If we are privileged enough to experience love like this on this earth, we are mightily blessed. Unselfish, sacrificial love makes us feel so valued; but of course, this type of love is reciprocal. We need to extend love like this to other people as well, and this is a big challenge, especially if the object of our love behaves in an unlovable way – as we do, often, if we are honest with ourselves.

However, there is light at the end of the tunnel. We can be ‘loveable’; we can ‘love’ unselfishly, granted not all the time, if we model our love on the greatest role model in all of history: Jesus Christ. And if we are ever feeling unloved on this earth, we can consider just how much Jesus loved us by pondering the following facts:

1. Jesus left heaven to be born in a stable for us.
2. He lived life as a humble carpenter for us.
3. He shared His Father’s very words with us as He taught all over Judea and Galilee.
4. He healed the sick and taught us how to pray and how to honour His Father.
5. He offered His body as a living sacrifice, taking on the ugliness of sin so that we could be saved.
6. He died an agonising death on the cross so that we could live forever with Him.

If we embrace Christ’s agape love for us, we can indeed feel deeply loved, highly valued and humbly grateful. Jesus himself said to His disciples: Greater love hath no-one than this, that he lay down his life for his friends. John 15, v.13

Once we appreciate the full measure of Jesus’ love for us, we can only respond in worship and thanksgiving. And hard though it may be, we can try to respond by modelling His love in the world. We have the perfect example of how to be compassionate, understanding, gracious, patient and forgiving. If we trace Jesus’ life on earth through the gospels, we will see Him tirelessly putting Himself out, not only for His disciples but for all who followed Him. Not once does He show impatience when asked to heal the sick, feed the multitudes, and teach the people. Despite being mobbed by the crowds, He found time, mainly in the dead of night, to pray to His Father. But always He showed compassion for the sick, the hungry, the needy; sincere love for the men whom he had chosen as His disciples, even the one who betrayed Him, and an overwhelming love for the whole world – to all who would believe in His saving work on the cross. He wants us to be with him for all eternity – what an invitation. How can we not respond to it?

Living loved –basking in Jesus’ love for us – we are equipped to love the living – to share Jesus’ love with the world. In my case, Jesus’ love for me motivates me to write Christian books, as I would love to be able to share His love, in an incredibly small way, with ‘the world’. If even one reader is influenced/inspired by one of the messages in my stories, I will give all the praise to Jesus who equipped me to write in the first place. Oh, how awesome and unfathomable is the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord.