Scripture

Our verse for today comes from Ephesians 2:4, “But God, who is rich in mercy, because of His great love with which He loved us.”

Background

I have a suggestion for you today. Carve a few minutes out of your day and make a list of everyone that you love. Think about your family and friends, including those that may have already passed away. But intentionally take some time to write their names down. And don’t just rattle off a list in your head. Write or type them so that you can see their names in front of you. After you have completed your list, go back and add to it what you would be willing to do for each of them. Think about each individual, and consciously determine how far you would be willing to go for that person because of your love for them. If you knew they had a serious problem, would you be willing to do whatever it took, if you could, to solve it for them? If they had a fatal disease, would you swap your health for their illness to give them the years that they will never have? When we think about our love for the people in our lives, and then consider where that love would, or could, take us, we realize more fully what it means to love someone.

Application

Now, we know that God’s love for us took Jesus to the cross. His thirty year journey on earth required no GPS to get Him to His destination. And we also know that Jesus did all that He did for a bunch of dead people. He knew full well our serious problem and our fatal disease, and He was willing, because of His great love for us, to make alive what was completely dead in sin. He didn’t just hope for the best for us, and He didn’t avoid the situation to see if the problem would fix itself. Those are the methods of our weaker selves. He knew the ugliness of our condition and exactly what it would cost to fix it, and His rich mercy saw it through to completion. He didn’t need to write down our names and what He would do to help our causes. Each of us had the same problem, and there was only one solution. So He poured His blood out over all of us to give us the life that we did not have and could not get. Because of great love. What does your love ask of you? What are you willing to do for it?

Charge

As we seek Him today, use that list of loved ones to move you to action. Do or say what is needed to help who needs it. Love them because of His great love for you.

Salvation – Eternal Life in Less Than 150 Words