Why Did Christ Die for Me?

No matter how good I may have come across to the world before I submitted to Christ, I was too lost and too weak to reconcile myself to Father God. Also, I looked like nothing of value to the enemy, Satan, because I had already fallen into his camp, whether I knew it or not. In this state, Christ took pity on me (Ezekiel 16:4-6). Christ loves each of us more than we can even imagine loving another. His love surpasses any other gift for which we hope; His love is perfect as He is perfect.

"There is no such thing as God," I had spouted for years. Yet He loved me.

I found casual comfort in crystal therapy, sought life-changing answers in secular self-help books, but rejected God-worship as a crutch for the weak. Yet He loved me. Thank God, my hard head, which shut me off from Him for so long, also prevented me from falling for any of the dozen or more Eastern and other non-Christian faiths with which I flirted from time to time.

When I used His name as a curse, He loved me.

My using the Sabbath (Sunday or Saturday, take your pick) as a day to celebrate me and my needs did not stop God from seeing me as His child, prodigal though I was.

When I mocked my parents openly and refused in my heart to forgive even one of their parental missteps, my Lord valued me and knew one day I’d open my eyes and realize that my mother and father deserve honor just for bringing me into His presence. The other ways in which they both have blessed me throughout my life are just extra reasons to cherish them.

I have known several people who spawned enough hate in my soul to make me think about killing, and in 1 John 3:15 we discover that the thought is tantamount to the deed. Yet when murder infected my mind, my Father in heaven still held a vision of me coming clean through the blood of His Son.

Gleefully, I broke every one of the Ten Commandments. Nonetheless, God wanted my fellowship or companionship even though He has no need of it. God embodies love and He can’t do anything but love us, despite our constantly disappointing Him. He does not want to lose even one of us, but He refuses to hold on to any one of us against our will. This is perfect love.

The Creator could have made us totally obedient to him, but He did not, because obedience without desire means nothing. God wants us to love Him of our own free will, solely because He is who He is.

Christ our Shepherd will leave everything to round up one lost sheep (Matthew 18:12). He stopped at nothing, not even giving His own life, in order to bring you and me into His embrace. In that enormous embrace is safety, assurance and, ironically, real freedom. This is salvation.

(Excerpted from Stepping into the Light: You're a Christian, what now? by Diane L. Harris)

(Photograph by algiamil)