“The love of Jesus is the source of salvation. He loves, he looks, he touches us, we live.” – Charles Spurgeon
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No, I am not preaching here. But what I will be sharing here is about God’s love for us. The Father sent His only Son to save us from damnation so we could be with Him in heaven. That’s the sole purpose of today’s column.
Let me start this with a story I came across while checking my social media account recently.
There was this church in Atlanta, Georgia which was honoring one of its senior pastors who had been retired many years. He was already 92 and many church goers wondered why he was invited to preach.
After a warm welcome and introductory part, the retired pastor rose from his high back chair and walked slowly, with great effort and a sliding gait to the podium. Without a note or written paper of any kind he placed both hands on the pulpit to steady himself and then quietly and slowly he began to speak:
“When I was asked to come here today and talk to you, your pastor asked me to tell you what was the greatest lesson ever I learned in my 50-odd years of preaching. I thought about it for a few days and boiled it down to just one thing that made the most difference in my life and sustained me through all my trials. The one thing that I could always rely on when tears and heartbreak and pain and fear and sorrow paralyzed me.”
He said the only thing that would comfort him was the song “Jesus loves me,” a Christian hymn written by Anna Barlett Warner. The lyrics first appeared as a poem in the context of an 1860 novel called Say and Seal, written by her older sister Susan Warner.
“I always noticed that it was the adults who chose this children’s hymn (for the children of course) during a hymn sing, and it was the adults who sang the loudest because I could see they knew it the best,” the old pastor said.
He shared the “senior version” of the song: “Jesus loves me, this I know, / Though my hair is white as snow / Though my sight is growing dim, / Still He bids me trust in Him.”
The chorus went this way: “Yes, Jesus loves me, / Yes, Jesus loves me. / Yes, Jesus loves me, / For the Bible tells me so.”
He went to sing: “Though my steps are oh, so slow, / With my hand in His I’ll go / On through life, let come what may, / He’ll be there to lead the way.
“When the nights are dark and long, / In my heart He puts a song. / Telling me in words so clear, / Have no fear, for I am near.
“When my work on earth is done, / And life’s victories have been won. / He will take me home above, / Then I’ll understand His love.”
The chorus went this way: “I love Jesus, does He know? / Have I ever told Him so? / Jesus loves to hear me say, / That I love Him every day.”
Yes, Jesus loves me. He loves you. He loves all of us. John 3:16 says it all: “For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life.”
Max Lucado, author of Experiencing the Heart of Jesus: Knowing His Heart, Feeling His Love, wrote: “We may speak about a place where there are no tears, no death, no fear, no night; but those are just the benefits of heaven. The beauty of heaven is seeing God.”
Rob Bell also penned: “If the gospel isn’t good news for everybody, then it isn’t good news for anybody. And this is because the most powerful things happen when the church surrenders its desire to convert people and convince them to join. It is when the church gives itself away in radical acts of service and compassion, expecting nothing in return, that the way of Jesus is most vividly put on display.”
Now, allow me to end this piece with quotable quote on love from Let Me Be a Woman by Elisabeth Elliot:
“This love of which I speak is slow to lose patience – it looks for a way of being constructive. Love is not possessive. Love is not anxious to impress nor does it cherish inflated ideas of its own ideas.
“Love has good manners and does not pursue selfish advantages. Love is not touchy. Love does not keep account of evil or gloat over the wickedness of other people. On the contrary, it is glad with all good men when truth prevails.
“Love knows no limits to its endurance, no end to its trust, no fading of its hope; it can outlast anything. It is, in fact, the one thing that stands when all else has fallen.”
