Love God – Love People

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I watched the Passion of the Christ last night. As I sat there in tears watching everything Jesus suffered and endured for me, I realized an amazing truth. In spite of everything the people did to Jesus, the mocking, the beating, the spitting, the jeering, the scourging, the whipping Him nearly to death…in spite of all the pain and agony of the cross that He endured at the hands of His accusers and those who carried out the sentence placed on Him, Jesus yet LOVEd them. I realized that He couldn’t do anything but LOVE them because He is LOVE!

Jesus is the personification of LOVE. So while, if it were us, we would be faced with the choice to love them in spite of or to hate them for what they did to us, Jesus could not help but LOVE them irregardless. While, if it were us carrying the cross, we would be faced with the choice to forgive them or to carry a grudge and hold it against them for all eternity, Jesus could not help but forgive and ask His Father to forgive. He is LOVE and there is no hate in Him. Oh, what a LOVE!!!

That’s why He was able to have supper with Judas, while all along knowing he was going to betray Him in a few short hours. That’s how He was able to pray to His Father to “forgive them for they don’t know what they’re doing.” That’s why He didn’t come off the cross to save Himself. That’s why He endured the suffering and the shame. That’s why He went to Calvary and not me, because He is LOVE! Oh, what LOVE!!

That’s how He LOVEs me even now, when I don’t love Him as I should. That’s how He LOVEs me unconditionally, when I am incapable of loving Him as I ought to LOVE Him. That why He desires to live inside of me so that His LOVE can be made manifest in me and I can LOVE Him because He who is LOVE lives in me. That’s how I LOVE Him…with His own LOVE that is inside of me because LOVE lives here. I LOVE Him, because He first LOVEd me. Oh, how He LOVEs me!!

Now because He who is LOVE lives in me and thereby, I am able to LOVE, the LOVE that He has for others flows through me to others. If I have no LOVE for my fellow man, how can I say that Jesus lives in me, when it is His LOVE [Jesus Himself who is LOVE] that enables me to LOVE in the first place, for I am incapable of LOVE apart from Him. If I have no LOVE for my neighbor, how can I say that I LOVE God, for if LOVE [Jesus] is in me, then I will just simply LOVE, for He is LOVE!

Thank You, Jesus, for being LOVE and for giving Yourself [LOVE] for me so that I can accept LOVE [Jesus] enabling me to LOVE You and LOVE people!!

LOVE GOD and LOVE PEOPLE and you’ll have DAILY ENCOUNTERS WITH GOD!!