What Love Does

This is how much God loved the world: He gave his Son, his one and only Son. And this is why: so that no one need be destroyed; by believing in him, anyone can have a whole and lasting life. John 3:16 (MSG)

That’s the phrase my husband and I heard from the doctor on Friday. 

At first I thought maybe positive meant he didn’t have cancer. 

Then the doctor said, “The biopsy showed that there are malignant cells. We will need to start the second round of chemo as soon as possible.”

We finished the conversation. Hung up the phone. And my husband just began sobbing.

The one thing we really didn’t want to happen had happened.

All I could do was hold him.

As we lay there, I kept thinking, “I’d do anything to take your pain away, anything so you didn’t have to go through this.”

Later that night as my husband and I chatted, I told him how I think God must have felt like that when he saw the pain, destruction and hurt that sin causes in our lives. 

It made sense to me why God sent Jesus. 

God sent Jesus because he was able to do something to take our pain, able to do something so we didn’t have to go through hell. 

That is what love does. 

Love offers itself in place of the one it loves. (<-- Click here to tweet this)

When Jesus hung on the cross and took my sin – our sin – on his shoulders, it was because of love.

It was because Jesus could actually do something when he saw brokenness in the world.

God didn’t just say, “I’d do anything to take your pain away, anything so don’t have to go through this.” He actually did it. 

Thank you Jesus for your unlimited grace which has saved me from my sins. Thank you Jesus for dying for me and giving me eternal life. Amen.