Choose Love (6 page)

Jesus came to sacrifice Himself and lay down His life for us so we could be with Him forever. All because He loves us.

Jesus came so that we could have good news every day of our lives
.

Receiving the Love of God Through Jesus Changed My Life

When I received the Lord decades ago, I had a dramatic encounter with God. It was a life-transforming experience. One of the most amazing aspects about that time was not only sensing the love of God in the people who led me to the Lord, but also sensing God’s love for
me
.

I was twenty-eight years old and felt that my life was over. I had been raised by a very abusive, mentally ill mother and locked in a closet much of my early childhood. I grew up with paralyzing fear, anxiety, depression, and hopelessness. I tried everything I could to stop the pain and find a reason to live. I went into occult practices, Eastern religions, alcohol, drugs—but nothing provided more than temporary relief, after which I was always worse than before I started down that path. Nothing worked.

My hopelessness grew to such a state that I was days away from collecting enough sleeping pills to make sure I never woke up to that unending pain again. Back in those days, sleeping pills were not so easy to come by. You had to know somebody and I didn’t. But in the midst of my desperation, a friend and her pastor cared enough about me to recognize my suffering, and they met with me at a popular eating spot close to where I lived. The pastor explained God’s love for me and how I could receive it. He told me about Jesus in
a way that someone talks about a best friend. He said God had a plan and high purpose for my life, and He could change me from the inside out.

I had never dreamed of such a thing.

“How is that possible?” I asked.

The pastor gave me three books to read that he said would answer many of my questions. One was on the reality of evil, and God knew I needed this book because my occult practices had taught me that evil existed only in our mind. So if we got rid of evil in our mind, then it would not exist. I didn’t really fall for that lie because even if you could get rid of evil in your own mind, what can you do about the evil in someone else’s mind who wants to inflict it on you?

There were many of these kinds of details in the occult practices and other religions I had experimented with that didn’t make sense, didn’t work, and didn’t produce any tangible benefit in my life. They were all about trying to work my way to God, to be acceptable to Him. But with each new endeavor that failed, I sank lower and lower until I believed there was no other way to rid myself of emotional pain other than to end my life.

The second book I was given that day was on the work and power of the Holy Spirit in our lives when we receive Jesus. The third book was the Gospel of John. I went home and read all three books, and with each one my eyes were opened to things I had never heard before.

My friend and I went back to meet with her pastor the following week, as he had requested we do.

“Did you read the books?” he asked me right away.

“Yes, I did.”

“What did you think of them?”

“I thought I was reading the truth.”

He then asked if I wanted to receive Jesus. In a split-second look at my life I saw I had nothing to lose. I had tried everything I knew to do and there was no relief. No answers. I could not live with the emotional pain I was carrying around inside me another day.
I planned to end my pain one way or another. If what I felt while reading those books and hearing the pastor say was true, then this could be the best thing that ever happened to me.

I said yes.

I received the Lord that day and I felt different. I had a strange sensation in my heart that I didn’t recall ever experiencing before. It was hope. For the first time in my life I felt I actually had a future.

From that time on I wanted to know everything about Jesus. I wanted to be close to Him and experience the greatness of His love for me.

Jesus Is Called the Word, the Door, and the Good Shepherd

I learned that
Jesus is called the Word.
He wasn’t an afterthought by God in His creation of all things. Jesus was there
with
God and His Holy Spirit from the
beginning
of creation. The Bible says, “
In the beginning was the Word
, and
the Word was with God…All things were made through Him
, and without Him nothing was made that was made” (John 1:1,3). Jesus is the
living Word.
He came to earth as a man to dwell
with
us and meet us at our greatest need.

Jesus told people He was
with God
and had been
sent by God
(John 7:28-29). He said no one had seen God except for Him (John 6:46).

Jesus was the only one who was sent to earth from God.

Jesus was fully God and fully man, sent as a gift of God’s love for us
.

Jesus is called the door.
That’s because He is the only door through which we enter God’s kingdom on earth and in eternity. He said, “
I am the door. If anyone enters by Me, he will be saved
, and will go in and out and find pasture” (John 10:9).

Jesus is the open door to everything we need in our lives
.

We must keep that in mind at all times.
When it seems all doors are closed to us, we have forgotten who He is
.

Jesus is called the good shepherd
. Referring to Himself, He said, “I am
the good shepherd
; and
I know My sheep…
and
I lay down My life
for the sheep
” (John 10:14-15). He said His sheep follow Him because “they know his voice” (John 10:4).
When we receive the gift of Jesus, our spirit is awakened and we can hear His voice speaking to our heart
.

Jesus told others He was going to lay down His life for the sheep. He came to earth with the full intention of laying down His life for you and me.

There is no greater love than that.

Even though Jesus was speaking to the Jews at the time because He was born among them, He was also speaking of “other sheep” which were “not of this fold,” saying they “will hear My voice; and
there will be one flock and one shepherd
” (John 10:16).

This means
people of all races are His
. And no one can take away the fact that every one of them who chooses to follow Him as their Savior and Shepherd will not only walk with Him every day of their lives but also into eternity to be with Him forever.

Jesus Is Called the Way, the Truth, and the Life

Jesus is the only way to get to where we need to go
.

In fact, we cannot get there from here without Him.

I know I would never be where I am today if I had not chosen His way over my own. I am sure I would have died years ago when I had collected enough sleeping pills to end the pain.

Jesus said, “
I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through Me
” (John 14:6). He was very clear about that. Only through Jesus can we get to a place of being eternally restored into a close relationship with God and find the great peace, rest, hope, and love His presence brings us.

While God continuously sees all the good He puts in us, He also sees all our mistakes and errors, our foolishness, rebellion, and idol worship. He sees our rejection of Him and His ways and laws. Even so, it doesn’t matter what we
have
or
have not
done, He still loves us enough to continue drawing us to Himself. And He gives us
free will to choose
to receive
His way
for our lives or not.

God’s way
is through Jesus.

Jesus gave us a way to be free of the consequences of living apart from God—which is death—and to begin again in a close relationship with God forever
.

There is not a person who doesn’t need to be free from the consequences of sin. This is no small matter.

Living against God’s ways works death in our lives in some manner every day when we allow it to continue. But Jesus gave us a
way
to be
born anew
. The first time we were born, it was in the
flesh
, but being born
again
refers to being born in the
spirit
(John 3:6).

These are two separate events. You had no choice about the first one. You
do
have a choice about the second.

When you receive Jesus, your spirit comes alive
.
You experience life in a dynamic new way
.
You see things differently
.

Jesus said, “Unless one is born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God” (John 3:3). Without Him, there is so much we cannot see that exists in the spirit realm. Good things. Amazing things. The kingdom of God is a realm of blessing we cannot penetrate unless we have been born in the spirit by choosing to receive Jesus as Lord.

Even if you received the Lord years ago, don’t think you have nothing more to learn about Him. Yes, we are saved instantly from spiritual death, but His salvation takes a lifetime of working in us an ever-increasing understanding of all Jesus did.

We tend to forget the extent of what Jesus accomplished because of His love for us
.

Jesus was crucified—brutally tortured and nailed to a cross until He was dead. Then He was placed in a cave-like tomb with an enormous stone rolled in front of it and guards to keep anyone from stealing His body. But three days later the stone was supernaturally rolled away and Jesus was no longer in the tomb. He had risen from the dead to prove He was who He said He was, and that He had accomplished all He said He came to do.

His resurrection was real.

More than 500 people witnessed Him in His resurrected body as He appeared to each one of them over the following days before He ascended into heaven to be with His Father God.

After Jesus had risen, He entered a securely locked room and appeared to the people inside the room. He did not need to have someone unlock and open the door for Him because He
is
the door. And He is the way through. He is the God of truth because His Spirit leads us into all truth. Those of us who know Him understand that He is alive and He is the way to life forever with Him.

Jesus Is Called Savior, Redeemer, and Restorer

Jesus is called Savior
because He saved us from the consequences of our own sin, which is death. He was sinless, yet He took the consequences of
our
sin on
Himself
. And He gave us His sinlessness in exchange (2 Corinthians 5:2). That is certainly nowhere near being a fair trade for Him, but He saw His sacrifice as the right thing to do, because when you love someone you do everything in your power to save them from destruction.

Jesus is called Redeemer
because He “gave Himself for us, that He might redeem us from every lawless deed and purify for Himself His own special people” (Titus 2:14). He redeemed us from our place of being lost and took us to a place of being His special people. He is continuously preparing us for the good things He has for us to do and be.

Jesus is called the Restorer
because once we receive Him, God then sees the righteousness, goodness, and purity of Jesus in us. And as a result we have the right to be called children of God
.
As a child of God we are completely restored to Him. There is no more separation between us. “As many as received Him, to them
He gave the right to become children of God, to those who believe in His name
” (John 1:12).

What kind of love is this that we are called God’s children? (1 John 3:1).

Being a child of God makes us joint heirs with Jesus. That means everything Jesus is heir to, we also inherit. Except, of course, the right to sit at God’s right hand in heaven. Only Jesus has paid the price for that honor.

Jesus
willingly
laid down His life. Because He is God, He could have stepped down from the cross at any time and said, “Forget this. I am not doing it. These people are not worth it.”

Instead, even though He would have liked to not endure what was ahead, He prayed to God saying, “Not My will, but Yours, be done” (Luke 22:42).

Love kept Jesus going to the cross—love for His Father God and love for us
.

What follows in this chapter are only
some
of the gifts Jesus died to give us. When I truly understood these things, they changed my life.

When You Receive Jesus, He Gives You a New Foundation

Think about receiving a gift. Let’s say a valuable cross in a frame. I was given such a gift one time. If I had never opened up the gift, would I have really received the cross? If after years had passed, and it was still sitting inside the box all wrapped up in pretty paper and a bow, did I really receive it? I received something, but it was not near what was actually given.

God gives us the gift of Jesus, but too often we don’t really open the gift to see what all we have been given. One of the things He gives us is an entirely new foundation upon which to build our lives.