Audacious Love: The Greatest Love Story Ever Told

I am your typical girl.  I love a good love story.  My favorite movies are A Walk to Remember, The Notebook and Titanic.  When I hear that someone I know just got engaged, I need all the details.  How did you meet?  When did you know?  What did he say?  How did he say it?  I have been accused of being in love with the idea of love.

But Jesus has introduced me to a different kind of love entirely.  His love is audacious.  It’s bold.  It’s fierce and it’s unconditional.  For me, the Gospel is the greatest love story ever told.  

Just picture it.  A world ravished and tainted by sin.  Broken down to the core.  Without hope, without meaning.  Lost in depravity.  Looking for a way out.  Looking for an answer, but utterly and completely separated from God by it’s sin.

The Father’s heart broke.  His gut wrenched with compassion and love for the children He had created and designed for the purpose of relationship with Him.  His heart beat wildly in His chest with passionate love for His fallen children.  He had to have them back.  He had to cross the chasm.  He had to bridge the gap.

A plan.  A strategy.  A remedy was set into place.  He would give everything He had.  He would put everything at stake to win them back.  He would give  them His only Son, Jesus.  Jesus would enter the chaos.  He would get His hands dirty in their mess.  He would strap on flesh and blood to make the love of God a tangible reality to them.  A love they had never known or experienced before.  When they looked into His loving, compassionate eyes they would glimpse true love.  They would understand the heart of the Father.  And they would know God Himself.  Jesus would give and give and give to the point of giving His very life as a sacrifice.

In His death at the cross, Jesus made a beautiful exchange.  He took on the fallen nature of humanity.  He took on the sin, the guilt, the filth and the shame.  He bore it all on His shoulders.  And a beautiful thing took place.  Suddenly, humanity was able to experience what it was like to have that heavy weight of sin lifted from their shoulders.  Humanity experienced what it was like to be forgiven, to be clean, to be whole, by simply accepting the sacrifice He had made and choosing to love Him in return.

The Father’s heart swelled with joy, as His children took on the nature of His Son.  When He looked at them, they radiated the light of Jesus.  And for the first time, they were able to boldly approach His throne of grace.  They were given direct access.  No longer were they foreigners or strangers to Him.  He called them His sons and His daughters.

This is the love that I want to give my life for.  This is the love that I want to spend my days sharing with others.  People are already aware of thier sin.  They are already aware of their brokenness.  What they need to be reminded of is this audacious love.

“God made him who had no sin to be sin for us, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.” 2 Cor. 5:21