Things One does for Love.

"He was despised and rejected by mankind,

    a man of suffering, and familiar with pain.

Like one from whom people hide their faces

    he was despised, and we held him in low esteem" (Isaiah 53:3).

"All the people in the synagogue were furious when they heard this. They got up, drove him out of the town, and took him to the brow of the hill on which the town was built, in order to throw him off the cliff" (Luke 4:28–29).

Reading these 2 passages you would think they were speaking about a criminal or a lowly servant. An outcast.  Someone not worth the air we breath yet they are speaking of OUR SAVIOR, Jesus Christ. Who came to this earth to save us all. To show us what it means to Love the Lord and Love others. I often wonder, would I have been one of those that would have cursed my Lord. Or would I have dropped it all and followed Him. I like to think the second one would have been me. As do we all. Would my eye have believed the way my soul does now? I hope that I would have. But none the less Christ died for me anyway. He gave the ultimate sacrifice. Laid His life down for us. It has become such a popular phrase that you skip right over it. 

He laid his life down. Died. For US.

 Suffered the most horrible of deaths. For Us.  He was beaten with a whip, with lead balls, pieces of bone on the strands. It was a form of execution. Not the first round but the final round. He was struck 40 times with it.   It ripped his flesh from his body. Once they got to this point they kept going to expose bone and internal organs. And yet. Jesus endured. He was then to carry his cross to the place of the skull. While he was despised. Taunted. And insulted. Jesus endured. He reached the place he would die and was nailed to the cross. Lifted and then his slow agonizing walk to death began. His legs were bent so that he could push up on his pierced feet to get more air. Because if they were nailed straight with the leg not bent they would die faster. And a fast death was not what the Romans wanted. So while hanging the victim could push up on his feet that had been nailed through their heal and get a painful breath until he could not stand it any longer and he would bend his legs and put the pressure on his wrists. Jesus Endured.  He spoke. And died before the Romans finished him off. As a Christian we all know this. The process He went thru to die for us. And that HE ROSE. I repeat all this for me. A reminder. My life. My suffering. My endurance. IS nothing in comparison. When Jesus whispers to me ... talk to that person, give them this or that, go love, serve, give for me and I chose to keep on my schedule. I have just forgotten WHAT He did for me. WHAT He commanded me to do. 

Because of Love- Jesus Died for me.

Because of Love- Jesus Saved my soul. Redeemed me

Because of Love- I am to LOVE God and LOVE others.  NOT just the clean neat people. The dirty ones too. The prisoners, the homeless, the weak, the poor, the widows, the orphans, the LOST, the gangsters, the prostitutes , the strippers, the addicts, the thieves. Jesus did not say who i am to love. He said LOVE.    Do what he says. LOVE.  Where can you love others? IN your community. Prisons, Orphanages, Nursing homes, Street Corners. The neighborhood. The checker at the store. The woman at the grocery store. The couple standing next to you getting coffee. Your brother or cousin. Anywhere. And ask God to help you. To give you opportunities and the words to say.  LOVE. Show it. DO it. 

How? Give your time. Give your excess (clothes, furniture, food).  

When? Today. Right now.

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