Love Bears All Things

He himself bore our sins in his body on the tree, that we might die to sin and live to righteousness. By his wounds you have been healed. 1 Peter 2:24

We all long for love, and we think we understand it. We’ve felt its pull binding our hearts to another and think we know.

We don’t.

Love is so much more than we have understood it to be. Love revealed itself fully in the shape of a cross.

Don’t let familiarity with Easter’s story diminish its impact, beloved. Invite God to open your heart to a fresh reality, a new depth of understanding.

Love obediently surrendered Himself to a cup He didn’t want. Love endured pounding fists and baseless accusations. Love remained silent while mocking soldiers pounded a crown of jagged thorns deep into His brow. Love felt strips of leather and bone tearing flesh from His back, life and strength diminishing with each crimson spatter. Then Love stumbled in the street under the weight of a wooden cross.

A cross that wasn’t His. A cross that belonged to you and me.

How could Jesus do it? Why would He want to?

Scripture answers that question for us. He did it for the joyset before Him.

… Jesus, the founder and perfecter of our faith, who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross, despising the shame, and is seated at the right hand of the throne of God.Hebrews 12:2

You are that joy, dear one. His love for you compelled Him. He saw the weight of sin breaking you, hiding the untapped potential within your soul and stealing your life. And He created a way to release you from it.

He himself bore our sins in his body on the tree, that we might die to sin and live to righteousness. By his wounds you have been healed. 1 Peter 2:24

His wounds have healed you, beloved. They brought death to sin, conquered its power, and released His righteousness in its place. 

Love did that for you, child of God. Because,

Love bears all things.1 Corinthians 13:7

God has captivated my heart with the meaning of that scripture. The Greek word bearsin that verse is stego. It means to cover, as a roof covers a house. 

Take a moment to contemplate that picture. The love of Christ has created a new dwelling pace for you. It conceals, covers, and protects from exposure to harmful elements. It offers you a place of safety, a shelter from the harsh realities of this world.

But it only becomes that shelter to us if we enter it. 

Have you entered into the love of Jesus, dear one?

I only ask because I almost didn’t. I believed in a Name, but I hadn’t opened my heart. And professing Jesus as Lord while withholding your heart doesn’t save. It simply stacks a religious weight on the load you already bear. And that burden will rob you of the very joy that the cross set before you.

Grace is found through death and resurrection. The old passes away, and a new nature rises in its place. But that resurrection only becomes possible one way. We must open our hearts to love. 

You see, our broken, hard hearts keep love out, and God IS love. Our self-protective walls reject the very answer our souls long for. If we withhold our love from Jesus, we deny the healing His cross bought us. And we will miss the blessings of resurrection life.

But if we will open our hearts to Jesus and let His love become ours—if we will offer Him our broken hearts to mend—a miracle occurs. We come alive in His love! And from that place of freedom, we become a shelter for others.

Ann Voskamp describes it this way. 

“Real love is a roof. Real love makes you into a shelter, real love makes you into a safe place. Real love makes you safe.”

(Voskamp, Ann. The Way of Abundance. Grand Rapids: Zondervan. 2018. Print. p. 98)

Have you entered into Christ’s love, beloved? 

“By this all people will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another.” John 13:35

We cannot say we have entered into love when we keep fortifying the walls around our hearts to keep people out. Only a real encounter with Love (Jesus) will free us from the fear of loving others.

There is no fear in love, but perfect love casts out fear. 1 John 4:18

When we boldly enter into the shelter of Christ’s love, we become an extension of it. We become a safe place for others to run to in a storm. Freed from fear, our love becomes a roof over another.

So very different from the wolves of this world who bite and devour. 

Choose love, beloved. Trust Jesus to open and fill your heart.

And you will live!

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