What’s Love Got To Do With It…Everything!
Romans 5:5-8 (Amplified Bible)
5Such hope never disappoints or deludes or shames us, for God's love has been poured out in our hearts through the Holy Spirit Who has been given to us.
6While we were yet in weakness [powerless to help ourselves], at the fitting time Christ died for (in behalf of) the ungodly.
7Now it is an extraordinary thing for one to give his life even for an upright man, though perhaps for a noble and lovable and generous benefactor someone might even dare to die.
8But God shows and clearly proves His [own] love for us by the fact that while we were still sinners, Christ (the Messiah, the Anointed One) died for us.
I remember once being told in a confrontation that ended a relationship, “What does love have to do with anything?” I remember that feeling of being gut punch even though no one had physically touched me. I remember thinking in that moments if love is present it should have something to do with any decision made. I also remember thinking if God is as ever present as you say, why is He not a factor, and why is the love that you have for Him not a factor? If I was not sure of anything else in that moment I was sure that love of some sort should have had something to do with it; that obedience to the Lord and King should have played a part, but it didn’t because love really did have nothing to do with it.
You see for Christ, love had everything to do with the why’s of His trip to Calvary. It was His love for His Father that drove Him into the arms of obedience no matter how uncomfortable it was for Him, spiritually, mentally, physically and emotionally. It was His love for us that gave Him staying power, because even in the most trying of times it was that love that afforded purpose. Jesus understood that although, this was a debt that He did not owe, that the lives of ones he loved were at stake, which made His fulfillment of His destiny that much more important. Love kept Him ministering to those around Him even as He hung on the cross. Love was the motivation for the journey into the bowels of Hell to gain the victory over grave and over death.
In Corinthians 16:14, it says “Let everything you do be done in love (true love to God and man as inspired by God's love for us).” Christ set the example by His life and ultimately His death on the cross that love is and should be the motivator for all things, but not just any type of love, it was love that was and is God breathed and God inspired. It is the kind of love that will crucify and resurrect, it will have us lay down our lives, so that God can pick it up again and make it something extraordinary and purposeful. Love should be something that starts a new covenant and quickens the very lives of those in which we touch. Love should be the center of every decision made, just as Christ’s love was, when He journeyed up Golgotha’s Hill and was pierced and nailed for you and for me!
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