The Greatest Gift

“No one has greater love [nor stronger commitment] than to lay down his own life for his friends.” (John 15:13, Amplified Bible)

You gave me the greatest gift ever given, a gift of incalculable value at an unimaginable cost. When I try to imagine the price all within me recoils at the thought: the excruciating pain, the exsiccating thirst, the unspeakable humiliation, and ultimately, the weight of ineffable loss: the severing of intimate communion with the Father … in exchange for my sins. That soul-wrenching loss, deeper than the pain of any fleshly wound, was the worst.

Yet, You voluntarily did that for me…me…. You exchanged the joys of heaven to take a pummeling …for me.

Why would You do that?!! I am not worth that much! Yet in my spirit I hear You say, “You are to Me.”

That much love is incomprehensible. I cannot wrap my heart around it, let alone my mind. Knowing there would be points in my life when I would virtually spit in Your face, tantruming like a two-year-old, showing the appreciation of an angry newborn forced from the warmth and comfort of the womb.…yet… You call me “Beloved.”

Some things we were not created to comprehend. That I could be of such worth to You would be one of them. Lacking the ability to understand (or appreciate) such a gift forces me to simply accept it, to thank You. I am left with only one response: to repay You with my life, choosing to “trust in [You] with all [my] heart and lean not on [my] own understanding.” (Proverbs 3:5, New International Version.)

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