Love Died For You

“Love is a doing, not a feeling.”

Many mornings after my girls wake up, I will bear hug them and squeeze them tightly and ask, “Do you feel my love?” Without hesitation they respond, “NO! Love is a DOING, not a FEELING!”

True love is always demonstrated in action form and not merely words of endearment or feelings. Love is always in the air when you consider how movies, books and songs are written about it endlessly. But the Bible tells us that love is a person (God is love, 1 John 4:8) who demonstrates His love in action: “For God loved the world in this way: He gave his one and only Son, so that everyone who believes in him will not perish but have eternal life” (John 3:16, CSB). Love gave. Love is an action. Let’s dive deeper into this mighty love by looking back into scripture. 

I love the book of Hebrews because it masterfully combines the Old Testament and the New Testament together, revealing how Jesus fulfilled the OT law and demonstrating His love for us. 
  

Hebrews 5:7-10 says, “During his earthly life, he offered prayers and appeals with loud cries and tears to the one who was able to save him from death, and he was heard because of his reverence. Although he was the Son, he learned obedience from what he suffered. After he was perfected, he became the source of eternal salvation for all who obey him, and he was declared by God a high priest according to the order of Melchizedek” (CSB). Jesus could have been saved from death but he chose to die for us. And because Jesus died for us (action), Paul tells us in Romans 12:1, “Therefore, brothers and sisters, in view of the mercies of God, I urge you to present your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and pleasing to God; this is your true worship” (CSB). We are told because of the love we received from Jesus’ death, we are to love Him back in action by presenting our bodies as a living sacrifice. 

These scriptures echo the familiar saying: I am not asking you to do something I didn’t already do. Even Jesus, the Son of God, wasn’t exempt from experiencing suffering while He walked the earth. And His suffering wasn’t even self-inflicted as most of our suffering often is. Jesus CHOSE to suffer so that we could be made righteous- have right-standing with God. He chose to suffer for us because He loved us even when our sins separated us from Him-  “But your iniquities are separating you from your God, and your sins have hidden his face from you so that he does not listen” (Isaiah 59:2, CSB). But when we repent, it catches His attention. Remember, He will not force us to repent because He doesn’t want robots forced to love Him. It’s not genuine love if it’s forced. The verse right above says, “Indeed, the Lord’s arm is not too weak to save and his ear is not too deaf to hear” (Isaiah 59:1, CSB). I love that this chapter begins with God’s ability to save because it gives us hope when we have let sin separate us from Him.

Back to Hebrews- it says God heard Jesus’ prayers, appeals and loud cries because Jesus Himself had reverence for God. Jesus lived with the fear of God and feared God more than he feared the suffering and torment He would endure on the cross! That is mind-blowing! It continues to say that Jesus learned obedience to God through what he suffered! Even though our suffering is often self-inflicted, we are told here that suffering can teach us to obey God’s word if we let suffering have its perfect work in us. It then says this suffering perfected Him! Which then gave Him the right to become our salvation- also mind-blowing! Why would Jesus do this?! LOVE. Before we were even born, God loved us and Ephesians tells us that “He chose us in him before the foundation of the world, to be holy and blameless in love before him” and that this was the “good pleasure of his will” (Ephesians 1:4-5, CSB). 

Before Jesus demonstrated His love for us on the cross as our atoning sacrifice, the book of Leviticus tells us all about the instructions for the High Priest of Israel who would perform the atoning sacrifices. Their role foreshadows what Jesus would do. ONLY the High Priest could enter the Holy of Holies to offer sacrifice for the sins of Israel. He brought blood from the animal sacrifice into the presence of God. Hebrews tells us that “without the shedding of blood there is no forgiveness of sins” (Hebrews 9:22, CSB). And because Jesus sacrificed Himself for our sins, He became our High Priest! One difference between the High Priests of the OT and Jesus is that they would have to offer this sacrifice over and over and over for thousands of years. (Once the Temple was destroyed in 70 AD, it ceased, as there was nowhere for them to present the sacrifices although it was no longer necessary after Jesus’ death because He had become our atoning sacrifice.) Let’s compare what the High Priests had to do over and over to what Jesus did.

“According to the law almost everything is purified with blood, and without the shedding of blood there is no forgiveness. Therefore, it was necessary for the copies of the things in the heavens to be purified with these sacrifices, but the heavenly things themselves to be purified with better sacrifices than these. For Christ did not enter a sanctuary made with hands (only a model of the true one) but into heaven itself, so that he might now appear in the presence of God for us. He did not do this to offer himself many times, as the high priest enters the sanctuary yearly with the blood of another. Otherwise, he would have had to suffer many times since the foundation of the world. But now he has appeared one time, at the end of the ages, for the removal of sin by the sacrifice of himself. And just as it is appointed for people to die once — and after this, judgment— so also Christ, having been offered once to bear the sins of many, will appear a second time, not to bear sin, but to bring salvation to those who are waiting for him” (Hebrews 9:22-28, CSB). 

We learn here that Jesus demonstrated His love for us when He took His blood into the Holy of Holies of heaven into the presence of God, not over and over, but ONCE and for ALL time! This tells us that Jesus took care of sin and the only thing left is for us to repent. And whenever we sin, we simply repent again while asking and believing that His Holy Spirit will enable us to not continue in that cycle of sin. Jesus died so that we could have power, through His blood, over our sinful nature, that separates us from Him! If that doesn’t overwhelm you with love, hope, joy and deep holy reverence for Jesus, I don’t know what will.

Jesus is our High Priest in heaven seated at the right hand of the father (see Hebrews 1:3; 1 Peter 3:22; Acts 7:55-56) so the only one of the Trinity that is here on earth is the Holy Spirit. Jesus said, “I will ask the Father and He will give you another Counselor (advocate, comforter) to be with you forever. He is the spirit of truth…” (John 14:16-17). He says later, “But the Counselor, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in my name will teach you all the things and remind you of everything I told you” (John 14:26). In His love for us, He provided a way to continue our relationship with Him after He ascended to heaven. 

Jesus, with an unimaginable love for us, demonstrated His love for us that no other human being is capable of doing. 1 John 4:8-10 says, “…God is love. God’s love was revealed among us in this way: God sent his one and only Son into the world so that we might live through him. Love consists in this: not that we loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son to be the atoning sacrifice for our sins” (CSB). Love is an action. In fact, it is only possible for us to love because God first loved us (1 John 4:19).

The question I leave for all of us to reflect on is this: How do we love Jesus back after all He has done for us? How do we love Jesus back through action? Jesus gives us the answer in John 14, “If you love me, you will keep my commands” (verse 15, CSB) and “If anyone loves me, he will keep my word” (verse 23, CSB). And John reminds us that Jesus commands are not a burden to keep (1 John 5:3). Just as Jesus demonstrated His love for us on the cross so that we could be in right-standing with God, we can demonstrate our love for Him also in action: by obeying and keeping His word. James 1:22 says it this way, “But don’t just listen to God’s word. You must do what it says. Otherwise, you are only fooling yourselves” (NLT). Jesus’ death accomplished everything we need to live a life to love Him back. He did not merely speak of His love for us, but He left heaven to demonstrate His love for us. Love is a doing. Love is a human being. Love died for you and love died for me.