Tyranny of Love III

A long time since I have written. Since my last post, I've given a lot of thought to John 3:16. "For God so loved that He gave His only Son".

I'm not entirely sure how He had what it took to sacrifice His only son. I know I would rather sacrifice myself for my child than for her to suffer. The Christian tradition says that Jesus was the son of God and yet it also says that Jesus was God in the flesh. Is it possible that God sacrificed himself for us? It does appear that way. In many places scripture says that God became flesh. That He took on the facade of flesh to pay the ultimate sacrifice.

Scripture also says that through one man death came into the world to all men(Adam) and that through one man (Jesus) life came to all men. Does this mean all men have access into the life He promised. It sure looks like it!

The big deal here is this; God loved His creation with such overwhelming love, He did the unthinkable. He gave Himself as the payment for our sin. How He did this is above my pay grade. I'm just glad He did.

A love this strong can only be described as obsessive, wild, furious, crazy, head over heels. It is what drives a man to abandon all semblance of normalcy and act completely outside themselves to win the object of their affection. It drives a man to jump in front of a speeding car to save their kid in the street, it will drive a solider to jump on a grenade to save the lives of his brothers in arms, it drove Him to the cross.....it is abnormal.

And yet, most of us pass off the story of His love on the cross as a nice Bible story when in fact its the tipping point of eternity. Its the one thing, the one act, the one Person we should most pay attention to and more importantly, live as though we actually believed its message.

What is the message? Simple....Love, His love, conquers all. There is no need for anything else, man made or otherwise. In fact, anything that distracts from that message is opposed to that message. This message is the narrow gate Jesus referred to. The broad gate mentioned is everything else that distracts us from His love. We are so preoccupied with what we perceive as our life, we forget His. And in forgetting, we die. We were designed to live in the fullness of His love which energizes us and gives us purpose and direction. As the ancient saint said, "The glory of God is man fully alive".