"Why Jesus?" Part 1

It is completely possible to be in a church and around other Christians but miss the truth about who Jesus is and why He matters. Reading my introduction to “Why Jesus?” you might think I never stepped foot inside a church until I had this miraculous encounter with God, right? Nope. I went to my grandmother’s church on special occasions when I was a young child. I attended a Christian school during my preteen years. From age 10 to around 16, I went to church every week with my mother. As a young adult, I even enrolled my own daughter in Christian schools, and we visited the schools’ chapels every now and then. But for all I saw and heard in church services, it never crossed my mind that I should, or even could, get to know Jesus.

I can honestly say, for the first 26 years of my life I never felt a need for God. I was complacently living my life, thinking my thoughts, and feeling my feelings without searching for anything beyond what my eyes could see. However, there was something in the way He revealed Himself to me that day. Something caused me to be irresistibly drawn to Him. That something was LOVE. From that moment until now and forever, I am awakened to the truth that I have a need for love. And not just me. We all have a built-in need to be loved. We need to be nurtured and cared for. We thrive when we receive acceptance, goodness, and affection. At the core of who we are, the need for love exists; and we will gravitate toward anything that offers to fulfill that absolute and supreme desire.

I thought I knew what love was until I encountered God’s love through Jesus. I thought the natural instincts to take care of my child, or the warm feelings for family, or the deep longing I felt for a man meant I knew love. And in some ways, love was there. But when I encountered the love of God, I realized how deficient my love was for everything and how inadequate any love I had ever received was in comparison to God’s love. See, God’s nature is entirely summed up in love, and love is in everything He does. That is what the Bible means by “God is love.” So, when God created us in His own image, we were made by Love, with love, and for love. For all the reasons God made us, the primary reason was for us to share in His love. And what an amazing love that is!

God loves us unconditionally. Our reality is that we need the nurturing, affection, compassion, forgiveness, acceptance, and security that exists in the true meaning of love. We need love in spite of our flaws, faults, frailty, and failures. We need to believe that when we have nothing to offer and when we are in our lowliest condition, love still exists for us. Without it, we lose hope and become disconnected from everything truly meaningful in life. Have you ever met a person who did not, would not, or could not love? What a miserable soul!

But God’s love through Jesus satisfies the need like nothing else can. Through Jesus, God proved just how sure His love is because He CHOOSES TO LOVE us. There is no greater love than the love that is offered willingly, without qualification, and without limits. Jesus went all the way for love. He gave His life as a sacrifice to prove that He would do whatever it took to ensure we could live in the confidence that God really loves us. It is hard for us to comprehend this kind of love, because our love is guarded. Life teaches us to protect ourselves from the risks that go with loving someone “too much.” We have been scarred by what we knew as love; so we love cautiously, always bearing in mind we can only take so much pain should love betray us. But God does not have to protect Himself in that way. How do we know? Because He already knew what we were when He chose to love us. He knew the betrayal we were capable of, and He saw the treachery that was sure to come. But because He’s God, He can handle our weaknesses without changing His nature, which is pure love. Our fickle ways affect us, but they do not change God or His love toward us.

He also wanted to experience love from us in return. Not that He needed us to love Him. For the One who is love surely cannot need love. But He desired (and commanded) us to first give the love He put in us back to Him. Then, we are to share it with each other in the many ways He created us to do it. We show compassion, we love our neighbors, we create friendships, we marry, we have children – all for love.

Jesus’ love toward us is love in its purest form. Jesus is our foundation and basis for love. He teaches us how to love God, other people, and even ourselves the way we should. It is only by His love that we can measure all other love to see whether it is love at all. Therefore, it is only right for me to begin “Why Jesus?” with love – for love is who He is, and it was love that drew me to Him.

Scripture Reference: Isaiah 29:13, 1 John 4:16, 1 John 4:9-10, John 3:16, 1 John 2:2, Genesis 1:26, Romans 5:5-8, John 15:13, John 10:17-18, Jeremiah 31:3, Job 35:6-8, Mark 12:28-31, 1 Cor 13

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