a                     portrait

      of                   

   jesus 

            

A PORTRAIT OF JESUS – Love

 

“Love the LORD your God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your mind and with all your strength.” Mark 12:30

 

      The love that Jesus had for His Father was this kind of selfless, unconditional love.  Jesus knew how to love with all His heart, all His soul, all His mind and all His strength. Such an amazing love would lead Him down pathways unfathomable for most kings and yet He freely gave up what was His, sitting at the right hand of God in heaven, to be born as a perfect human being in a sin-cursed earth. Had Jesus not possessed such a love He would never have lived as He did.  Without such an intense, all consuming love for His Father, and always delighting to do His will….

·         He would not have agreed to be born in a smelly stable, living a life of extreme poverty.

·         He would not have become a nomad, having no place where to even lay down and rest His head.

·         He would not have chosen the lowly, despised ones of earth to become His disciples.

·         He would not have allowed constant interruptions to His schedule, taking time to teach, heal the sick and raise the dead.

·         He would not have sought out the lonely, despised & forgotten.

·         He would not have given hope to the hopeless.

·         He would not have “emptied Himself“of the glory He had to come to earth, be misunderstood, mistreated, suffer and die.

 

      The love Jesus had for His Father, resulted in His complete self-denial, even to death on a cross. He left us the ultimate example of what unconditional love truly means, laying down His life for His  friends; for His enemies who plotted to kill Him; and for those yet to be born, all the result of loving the LORD His God completely.  What an amazing example He left us, as His disciples, to deny self, take up our cross daily and follow in His steps!

 

      Jesus showed us how to not only care for and love those who are easy to love, but how to love the unlovable, laying down our lives for those who use and abuse us.  This is agape love.  This is unconditional love.  This is God’s love as shown so perfectly through the life of our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ, and this is our calling. And may we always remember, “My God shall supply all your need according to His riches in glory by Christ Jesus (Phil. 4:19)!

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                    

                                                                                     D. Mathewson