Imagine if you loved someone enough to die for them. You just love them. You can't explain it or change it, you just do. The love is drawn from you without your permission, without being able to stop it.
Now, imagine that the focus of your love does not love you back.
That's the most unimaginable pain. But, still, no matter how you try, that love won't stop. You feel insane. You feel humiliated, even ashamed of yourself. Yet, you still love them. Even more than before!
Isn't that a microscopic sample of what kind of love Jesus had for mankind? We humans get to experience love in a lesser form than what He had for us, but, yet, it's still painful at times.
Are you willing to suffer for Love? That's the question He asks of us all.
And, really, we cannot bear the suffering love causes unless we cling to Him through it all. He wants to give us a heart of flesh to replace our heart of stone. He wants us to love freely the way He loves. He wants us to go all the way for love no matter how much it hurts.
Imagine Jesus, His perfect arms stretched out and covered with blood. His perfect hands pierced with terrible nails cutting open the flesh, holding the weight of His body.
What was He thinking as He hung there?
Was He embarrassed? Ashamed? Disgusted? Remorseful?
I think He felt He had to go to the max, the climax of giving all His Love and pass through that agony of suffering pain caused by the heart-break in knowing that those He loved and died for could never return that love to Him. But He had to give that love even though it killed Him.
I believe that every day that Jesus lived on this earth, His heart grew larger and the love inside of Him grew until He could no longer bear it in a physical body. He had to pour it out in death.
When the soldiers pierced his side with a sword, water came out along with the blood. This water on his heart was the result of emotional stress: Love.
So, are we willing to suffer for Love?
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