No Greater Love

No Greater Love

I find it funny how one verse can make you ponder everything in your life. Direction seems almost fickle at times. Christ said in John 15:13 that “Greater love has no one than this, that he lay down his life for his friend.” As a former infantry soldier this hit me hard. Id like to say now in the safety of my room, undoubtedly yes I could do this. But it is one thing to say this now and another to follow through while I am being attacked by an enemy. A few things went through my mind when I began reading this verse; What love is this?, It has to be intentional and voluntary, and this is for a friend.

What type of love is this? I mean I have been in life or death situations before where I have risked my own life to save another mans but I never considered it love. I never considered it an emotion. I thought of it more as a response to my duty to my fellow brother in arms. It came with a sense that they would do the same for me. Whether or not if I liked the person, we wore the uniform of soldiers in the United States Army and that was enough for me. I knew exactly then what my response must be. But what type of love is it that I can do this for someone outside of my military family or even someone I don’t know and is outside of my call of duty. Am I truly willing to lay my life down for some stranger?

This whole idea is voluntary. The whole idea of jumping on that grenade for a friend or taking that bullet to save someone else is a voluntary idea. NO one is forcing the situation on us. If we do this we are committing to it. Even if we try we know the possible results that could face us if we succeed. We willing are laying our lives down. Who in their right mind does this? I know my uncle did in Vietnam and one thing he told me is that he did it for love. He loved his brothers in arms. The voluntary portion of it still boggles the mind.

Laying your life down for a friend. I mean you can sit there and say you would be willing to lay your life down for a friend but do you mean it? Does it encompass all of your friends or do you have your select few that are in an inner circle that you would choose. Could you do it for a stranger?

Then it hits me even harder. It hits so close to home that I actually begin to cry. I look at all three of these things and begin to wonder in my life how I could ever do this. I ask myself if I am even capable of this or is there someone who is. But there always has been. Christ did this for me 2000 years ago on a cross. He loved me so much that he was willing to voluntary give himself up so that I can live. He loved me even though he knew I would wind up one day rejecting him and turning from him. He loved me when I was drinking, he loved me when is was fornicating, he loved me when I was selling my own possessions to put myself into an inebriated state to just escape all the pain, he loved me at my lowest point. He knew all of this before I was even a thought or even an idea. He knew all the struggles I would face in life but yet his love was the key factor.

He loved me so much that he willingly gave up his life for me so that I could live. He ended it all. He laid himself down, went through hell itself on a cross for me. He took my shame, my disgusting failures, and my dirty secrets on himself and paid the price for my mistakes 2000 years ago. He was willing to do this for love and the chance that I would find him and fall in love with him.

He did this for a friend. That even though I rejected him, and in a basic sense spat in his face and never headed a word he said he did this for me, and considered me a friend. He was willing to take the bullet, jump on the grenade, be crucified for me.

The amazing thing to me is that he didn’t just do this for me. He did this for all of creation. There is not a single person alive on this earth that he was not willing to love and voluntarily lay his life down so that we may find life in him. That he was able to do this for all of humanity still to this day baffles me and will continue to do so until the day I am able to see him face to face.

Our culture some times dumbs down the idea of giving oneself for someone else. We say it in songs about dating relationships, we see it in the movies, we hear about it on TV but when we really look at it, it looks nothing like that of what Jesus did for you and me. No matter what the world says there is nothing in this life that can even cast a shadow on what he did for us on Calvary. And that is a love worth sharing…for there is no greater love.