To love with a passion means to sacrifice yourself.

I watched THE PASSION OF THE CHRIST today. For those of you who haven’t seen it, this is a movie depicting the final twelve hours in the life of Jesus. It is a movie filled with the passion of the One who came to sacrifice His life so that we may be forgiven. Christ’s obedience to God is the most impressive act humanity has ever known. I believe that the entire life of Jesus up to the point of His death is the most accurate piece of history we possess. You are truly, deeply, and passionately loved by the Giver of Life. God didn’t just tell us what love means, He rather showed us His love by giving His one and only Son as a sacrifice for our freedom.

But he was pierced for our transgressions,
       he was crushed for our iniquities;
       the punishment that brought us peace was upon him,
       and by his wounds we are healed.

– Isaiah 53:5.

Someone had to pay for our sins so that we may experience the peace and the healing that we so desperately need. God saw that we have strayed away from the truth, this making us prisoners of the darkness. The sacrificial Lamb was Jesus Christ, who willingly gave His life out of love for humanity. When I think of Jesus, I imagine His beautiful, gentle, and loving eyes looking at me with a love so true that my whole being awakens to life. Through Christ’s sacrifice, God wanted us to understand that we need to die in order to be alive. What beautiful symbolism! Yes, we need to die to ourselves in order to be alive through Christ. Accepting Christ means giving up your own life to Christ, therefore, you no longer live; but Christ lives through you. What an act of love  for our Savior! Your life will no longer be the way it was; Jesus Christ will make all things new. Three days after His crucifixion, Jesus rose from the dead like He promised; and through his own death, He was made new. Jesus is alive and His Holy hands still carry the scars that the roman nails left as a mark which proves to us that His eternal love is real.