The Love that Changed My Life

As I watched “The Passion of the Christ” with my high school students on Good Friday, I was hit pretty hard. I watched with a heart that broke as Jesus was mocked, spit upon and beaten. I could barely hold back my tears as I saw his flesh cut into and torn as he was whipped. I was deeply convicted as the nails were hammered into his hands. He was innocent; he didn’t deserve any cruelty. It was my sin that drove the whips and hammer, but it was his obedience and love that compelled him to suffer and willingly give his life to take away that sin. His suffering and death paid the price for every single one of my sins, every single one of your sins and every single sin that has ever been or ever will be committed.

When my husband and I got married, our minister gave us a poster with “the love passage” (1 Corinthians 13:4-8). It was the first thing I saw when I got out of bed each morning and that last thing I saw as I laid down to sleep each night. Sadly, I didn’t really understand the fullness of the message that is so often read to brides and grooms. The tragic thing is that when I read the beautiful words, the only things that came to my mind were the ways I thought my husband wasn’t loving me. I would get upset because I didn’t feel like I was being loved the way I was supposed to.

One day, I was reading through the verses, having a pretty good pity party and pointing out to God the ways that my husband wasn’t loving me. That’s when God gently pointed out to me that I wasn’t living up to that passage. I had never questioned my love for my husband. I thought I was doing a great job. That day, however, God opened my eyes to see that I was definitely keeping “a record of wrong” and I was also “self-seeking.” Furthermore, when I didn’t think my husband was treating me right, I would retaliate. When the Holy Spirit convicted me, those words I had read over and over became life-changing to me. I finally realized that the great “love passage” not written to tell me how I should be loved; those words were written to tell me how I should love.

The love described in 1 Corinthians 13 is the same love manifested when Jesus died on the cross for my sin. It is a love that isn’t dependent on whether or not the recipient is lovable or worthy. It is a selfless love that comes from our obedience to God’s commands. Some of Jesus’ last words to his disciples before dying on the cross were, “My command is this: Love each other as I have loved you. Greater love has no one than this: to lay down one’s life for one’s friends” (John 15:12-13).

I am to love with the love of Christ regardless of how I am being loved. Learning this truth has made a huge difference in my life. Just as Jesus laid down his life for me, I too am to lay down my life. “I have been crucified with Christ and I no longer live, but Christ lives in me. The life I now live in the body, I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me” (Galatians 2:20).

I am ever thankful for a God who loved me enough to die for me. I am thankful that when I gave my life to him, he sent his Spirit to live in me. I am thankful that his Spirit enables me to love others with the same love in which he loves me. I am ever thankful to know and experience his love which is the greatest most perfect love there is. I am thankful that my life is forever changed because of him.