Focal passages: Romans 5:6-12; 18-21
What is love? Is love the emotion a child feels on Christmas morning? To some degree, yes, they love the day, and they love the gifts. Yet, how long does that feeling last? For those of us that are no longer children, how many of those toys are we still playing with? I would be shocked if any of us are.
There are two common events where people describe true love: weddings and holding a child for the first time.
In both of those moments, there are deep relationships and commitments to love, care and provide for others. Sadly, sometimes even those expressions of love do not last. We need something more – Christ’s commitment to us. Even at our worst, Christ is fully committed to love us and bring us to God.
How many of us are willing to exhibit love for a complete stranger? Probably none of us. We might show an unusual measure of kindness or commitment if we somehow knew a stranger was going to cure cancer or do some other great deed.
But we see in Romans 5:8 that while we were still sinners Christ died for us. We had nothing to bring to this relationship. We were on the opposing side of Christ and yet He laid down His life for us. We should ask ourselves why He did this? Christ wanted to reconcile us to God.
Christ’s desire was to bring us into right relationship with the Father. Christ does the work to bring us back to God. Christ comes to make all men who believe in Him right before the Father.