"1 Follow God's example in everything you do, because you are His dear children. 2 Live a life filled with love for others, following the example of Christ, who loved you and gave Himself as a sacrifice to take away your sins. And God was pleased, because that sacrifice was life sweet perfume to Him."
Romans 5:7-8
"7 Now, no one is likely to die for a good person, though someone might be willing to die for someone who is especially good. 8 But God showed His great love for us by sending Christ to die for us while we were still sinners."
1 John 4:9-10
" 9 God showed how much He loved us by sending His only Son into the world so that we may have eternal life through Him. 10 This is real love. It is not that we loved God, but that He loved us and sent His Son as a sacrifice to take away our sins."
This is something I struggle with a little. I've found that I try not to think about what Jesus endured for me, cause honestly, I hate the thought of it. I watched The Passion of the Christ for the first time this year when Suburban held a showing of it around Easter. I wasn't really sure what to expect, as there's been some debate about it's accuracy, quality, etc. I'm not sure why it feels like a struggle to admit this, but it hit me hard. As soon as I got in my car and was on the road, I lost it; I started sobbing, and I hate admiting that because 1) I hardly EVER cry, and that's something that I'm proud of for some reason. And 2) it was seemingly because of a movie. But I couldn't help it, which was even more frustrating. I was sobbing because now I had a visual image in my mind of what Christ endured, even if it wasn't the real thing and only a movies portrayal of it, it was still there. And I hate the thought of someone doing that for me. When I was younger, I would try to compare what it was like to something that was easier for me to understand. I used to imagine it being like someone took a bullet for me, but that never worked because taking a bullet is NOTHING like what Christ went through. He was wrongfully accused, beaten in ways that I can't imagine, mocked, spat on, humiliated, whipped, forced to carry a heavy, splintering tree on His open flesh, nailed to the same tree He carried up a hill, and then sufficated... for me. It makes me feel almost guilty at times. But that guilt doesn't come from God, it comes from Satan, the great deceiver. Jesus WILLINGLY went through that. He didn't want to, He prayed that there could be another way (Mark 14:36), but there wasn't, and He still did it. I personally can't fathom that kind of love, because I'm a selfish ninny who doesn't want to endure hardships. I don't feel like I deserve what He went through for me. I'm selfish, proud, oblivious, hurtful, weak, arrogant, disobedient, and more, and I'm constantly letting Him down. Yet He still finds me worth dying for.
I think the thing that gets me the most, and it's something that I'm reminded of every day, is that at that time God knew exactly who I was, and He had every power to deny me His salvation, but He didn't.
The last song that I posted, You Love Me Anyway by Sidewalk Prophets, is one that speaks really deeply to me. If you don't watch/listen to anything else, listen to that.
"But the beauty of grace is it makes life not fair."
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