But God demonstrates His own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us. (Rom. 5:8)
The other day I had an interesting conversation with a friend. We were talking about God and the concept of walking out a day by day relationship with Jesus. My friend said something that struck me as being so profound. She said, “I believe that God is not more distant from one person than He is from another. I think it’s more about how much we allow Him to love us.” I think my friend is right. God’s love is available to all of us. None of us are more deserving of His love than anyone else. We just need to recognize this and allow God in.
This is the whole message of the Gospel. Thoughts began to flood my mind and I became overjoyed just thinking back on all Jesus has done for me. We tend to sanitize the Gospel to make it safe and nice. But at the heart of the Gospel message, God hangs on a cross, bruised, beaten and bloody, unrecognized and unloved by the people He came to save. You see God isn’t afraid of messes. He isn’t afraid of chaos. He is familiar with the tension of suffering that exists in this world. He is no stranger to darkness. He is not naive nor is he unaware of all that we go through. God doesn’t stand far off. He stands with us. It tells us in John 1:14 that when Jesus was born, “The Word became flesh and made His dwelling among us. We have seen His glory, the glory of the one and only Son, who came from the Father, full of grace and truth.” He chose to get up close and personal with us. He chose to get His hands dirty.
Stop and think about it for just one moment. On what seemed to be the darkest day of human history,God Himself hung on a cross, ashamed and seemingly defeated. The hope of humanity rested on His torn flesh and it seemed that darkness had won. But when Jesus rose from the grave three days later, He proved that darkness could never hold Him down and that death could not defeat Him. He won the victory for us, taking the punishment for our sin and making it possible for us to have a relationship with God. He demonstrated that love really does conquer all.
I want to encourage you, through whatever darkness you are facing, whatever trials and whatever suffering to make the choice to let His love in. Allow Him to be the ray of hope in your despair. Allow Him to be the one that heals your brokenness.
Then Jesus again spoke to them saying, ‘I am the Light of the world; he who follows me will not walk in darkness, but will have the Light of life. (John 8:12)
