While the depth of God’s love for me is something I will never be able to wrap my head around, I’ve come to understand a little more about it lately.
I heard the song “Reckless Love” by Cory Asbury a few weeks ago for the first time. Every lyric in this song is powerful, but this line hit me and I couldn’t stop thinking about it:
When I was your foe, still your love fought for me.
Now, I realize this isn’t a foreign concept. Romans 5:8, a verse most of us know pretty well, tells us that while we were yet sinners, Jesus died for us. Similar idea.
But that word “fought”… that’s what gets me. To fight for something is to be active in the pursuit to claim victory; it’s messy, it often requires sacrifice.
What this tells me is that the love of Jesus isn’t just an accepting or generally accessible love, though even that is more than we deserve; it’s an active love. It’s a love that fights through the darkness, our struggles, our weaknesses, our circumstances, and our sometimes hard hearts to heal and restore us.
There’s an excerpt from a book by Priscilla Shirer called Life Interrupted that talks about how no other religion’s god compares to ours. She uses the example of Buddha. If followers of Buddha want to sit in front of his statue and be “enlightened” they have to travel to Asia, and climb up hundreds of stairs to get near him – then fight through the crowd of people already there to get closer.
They have to pursue access to him and hope they leave with whatever they went there for.
But we have Jesus. Jesus who left His throne in Heaven (John 6:38), was tempted in every way possible as man (Hebrews 4:15) and willingly laid his life down to offer us redemption (John 19) all in pursuit of our hearts.
He got down on our level so he could empathize with our weaknesses and struggles, and actively chose, and still chooses, to fight for our hearts.
What. A. Savior. We. Have.
Here’s the song. Let your soul soak in the truth of those lyrics.
~ Alyssa