When Zac was two, he tripped and fell, banging his head against our front doorstep. The deep gash along his eyebrow was serious enough to require a hospital visit and stitches.
Even though the nurses gave him ketamine to numb the pain and sooth him, Zac still wriggled and cried as they applied the stitches. I felt helpless as I watched my son, wishing I could swap places and save him from the pain.
I later realised that my desire to swap with Zac is essentially how John describes love in his first letter. “This is love: not that we loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son as an atoning sacrifice for our sins” (1 John 4:10). God saw our pain, caused by our sin and the broken world we live in. But rather than just wish He could do something about it, He sent Jesus—His one and only Son—to take our place and bring us into new life.
On the cross, Jesus died the death that our sin deserved. He paid for every wrong and bore all our shame in His body so that we would never have to face the eternal consequences. Now we can “live through him” (v. 9).
If we ever doubt God’s love for us, we don’t need look any further than the cross. For John describes that costly sacrifice with these powerful words: “This is love.”
By Chris Wale
REFLECT & PRAY
How does it humble and encourage you to think that Jesus took your place on the cross? How does this deepen your understanding of what love is?
Dear Jesus, I am so thankful that You not only saw me lost in sin, but You came to save me from it. Thank You for this love.
SCRIPTURE INSIGHT
Scholars believe 1 John was written by the apostle John, the author of the fourth gospel. Some ten years after writing his gospel, John wrote this letter to teach believers how to “live as Jesus did” (1 John 2:6)—putting love into action. Reminiscent of the language of John 3:16–17, John reminds us that God “sent his one and only Son into the world . . . as an atoning sacrifice for our sins” (1 John 4:9–10 ). “Atoning sacrifice” describes what Jesus did on the cross in “removing guilt and purifying sinners (expiation), and appeasing God’s anger towards sinners (propitiation)” (NIV Zondervan Study Bible).
K. T. Sim
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