The Furnace Repair Man

Sometimes I wonder if all that Jesus endured as a man on earth, on the cross, and with men of sinful flesh was worth it. This curiosity doesn't downplay the beauty and meaning of my Savior's sacrifice but I just can't help but wonder just how frustrating it would have been to come to earth for such good reasons only to be ridiculed, ignored, and killed because of them. It would be much like if I owned my own home and in that home there being a perpetually broken furnace that left me frozen in the winter and cooked in the summer. So in hopes of a well-functioning temperature regulation system in my home, I call a repairman to fix it. But when he arrives, all I do is push him around, question his reasoning for being at my doorway, threaten to hurt him for years, and eventually kill him because I don't truly believe he came to fix my furnace when in all honesty, that was his ONLY reason for coming to my house. While that may be a far fetched example, it's hardly different from Jesus and His decision to embody Himself as God in the likeness of sinful flesh, die a gruesome death, and be raised from the dead SO THAT we could choose unity with God by the grace in the shed blood of Jesus Christ. Jesus came to redeem His lost sheep but the majority of them just mistreated Him, choosing to believe He wasn't God and shoving away the Life they had been pining for for so long. So was all of that worth it? Jesus's answer startled me when I asked Him.

He said, "If it were only you in this world, I still would have done it. Your problem of sin was that ugly and my love for you that great."

Simply put, painfully and beautifully true.

So even if I were among the mockers and beaters that led up Calvary, my Jesus's eyes still would have rested on me as if to beg me to let Him love me. I still--and hope I never--can't get over it: God died for me and gave Himself life again...well, in all honesty, just for me.

Crazy enough, He did it entirely, wholly, and fully just for you, too.

The words of the children's song really have never been more beautiful to me than they are now:

Jesus loves me, this I know. For the Bible tells me so. Little ones to Him beside. They are weak, but He is strong. Yes, Jesus loves me! Yes, Jesus loves me! Yes, Jesus loves me! The Bible tells me so.