TrUe LoVe
As I sat here listening and praying to God, the song “what’s love got to do with it” popped into my head. I searched for it,and just sat in silence listening to the song and lyrics. Then I asked Jesus, why this song, how does this song relate to me at all?
Then I realized, LOVE has EVERYTHING TO DO WITH IT. In this broken world we live in, LOVE is the thing that we all seek for; yet it is the hardest to find. Loving ourselves, loving others, loving this world, is what we want, yet it is so difficult to find. I confess I have always looked for love in the wrong places: I always thought if I was a different size, or had this skin color, or hair color, if I had less freckles and didn’t snort when I laughed, if I wasn’t so independent and talkative, if i wasn’t blah blah…the list could go on for days. I thought all of those things would make me feel loved, would make someone love me. However the love that I was seeking, was NOT the love that I NEEDED. I do not NEED that sort of love, the kind that can change at any moment, the kind that make makes me be someone I am not, the kind of love that can leave me with deep wounds and scars. The love I NEED can only be offered by Jesus.
The LOVE Jesus offers me is one that will NEVER CHANGE, it is unconditional and never ending. His love does not make me someone I am not, but embraces me as the woman he created me to be. His love will never harm me or leave scars but instead provide HEALING of any past scars I may have.
His love is one that no person or thing could ever come close to. This song sums up my thoughts well, “Lord I stand in wonder, of the sacrifice You made/ Mercy beyond measure, my debt You freely paid” Jesus, you sacrificed yourself, so that we can be loved by you GOD, so that we can experience healing and HOPE that cannot be offered from this world. As it says, Lord, “my debt you freely paid.” When you died on that cross, Jesus, you took the wrath of all my sins, so that I can be free, you went through all that pain and misery so that I would not.
13 And they cried out again, “Crucify him.” 14 And Pilate said to them, “Why, what evil has he done?” But they shouted all the more, “Crucify him.” 15 So Pilate, wishing to satisfy the crowd, released for them Barabbas; and having scourged Jesus, he delivered him to be crucified. 16 And the soldiers led him away inside the palace (that is, the praetorium); and they called together the whole battalion. 17 And they clothed him in a purple cloak, and plaiting a crown of thorns they put it on him. 18 And they began to salute him, “Hail, King of the Jews!” 19 And they struck his head with a reed, and spat upon him, and they knelt down in homage to him. 20 And when they had mocked him, they stripped him of the purple cloak, and put his own clothes on him. And they led him out to crucify him.
31 So also the chief priests mocked him to one another with the scribes, saying, “He saved others; he cannot save himself. 32 Let the Christ, the King of Israel, come down now from the cross, that we may see and believe.”
Jesus was innocently condemned, abandoned and turn in by the same crowds that he performed miracles on, He was mocked, (purple cloak and crown of thorns) He was humiliated,spit upon, beaten one lash before death, forced to carry his own cross to his death, exhausted, hands nailed, feet nailed, lungs crushed; WHY? Because he loves me, because he loves you. This is the TRUE LOVE that the song is talking about. “I stand in wonder, of the sacrifice you made” Jesus, I fall at my feet in awe and wonder about the sacrifice you made.
“God demonstrates His love toward us that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us”
Jesus, Thank you for your ultimate example of love. I pray that this is the LOVE that I seek after! I ask for your forgiveness for forgetting your love, for doubting that you can love someone like me, but Jesus, you would NOT have died on the cross for me unless you loved me. You love me inside and out, for every fault and every strength. I ask that you give me the strength to be an example of your love, with how I love myself, and especially how I love others around me so that we can all experience your abundant and unconditional love. Thank you Jesus, Amen.
