Why I love Jesus

Day after day, moment after moment I cannot cease asking, why do I feel compelled to love Jesus, Why did He do all this for me? Am I so significant to His Majesty that He chose to die for me? Ah! He could have brushed me from existence and created everything new. What am I but dust existing on a speck of dust in this vast expanse of a Universe? Insignificance is an easy conclusion to be drawn from the vast dark expanses of this universe. It reminds me of a prayer I learnt in my childhood, “Dear Lord, keep me safe from sinking, the sea is so large, my boat so small.” With the passage of time and with the process of aging, our sense of wonder now turns to cynicism. We learn to anchor the idea of significance and value in things that are fleeting, it could be relationships, it could be wealth or it could be anything. The bottom-line is that everything including you and me is fleeting.

It is in the shadows of this sense of insignificance that the idea of love seems to gather special meaning. We battle the idea of insignificance and try to find value and significance in everything we do, our relationships, and our professions; just about everything we do is geared to satisfy our hunger for significance. The very idea of us being an insignificant part of the whole attacks our sense of identity and our sense of value, it contradicts everything we long for and everything we deeply desire at a metaphysical level. Our childhoods are anchored around moments when father held our hands tenderly and lovingly, looked into our eyes, and told us you and I meant the world to him. I could never understand why dad would do that. Today, I have a niece who I long to hold and tell her how much she means to me and how much joy she has brought into my life. I am now grown and I am compelled to assure my dad that I love him and that I fear the day I would lose him to eternity.

It is in these moments of tenderness, that we see what God ought to be, the One who can fully and finally satisfy our hunger for significance. The Bible is the only book that addresses this need and makes an extraordinary and bold claim. That God loves us. He loved us to the point that He spared not His own Son because He sees Himself in us. I grew into a teen, I rebelled and I hated my father and couldn’t stand his presence, yet he quietly stood there waiting for the day when I would see him for who he truly was. I now see it in glimpses and even though I repent now, it seems too little and too late now. Yet there Dad still stands waiting for me, hoping I will still love him more. In His love, I see What God is, because just like dad, My Heavenly Father sees a bit of Himself in me. 

If God did not so love that He would do something so stupid and inexplicable as dying for his own children, then what God is he? How could He ever teach his children to love each other, how could peace even be? We all long for a day when we could see a world where spears could be bent into ploughshares and guns could be turned into water jets. Where we could all love one another and live in that utopian state. But all we have to do is to wake up from this wishful slumber. The terrible realization that reality is far removed from the longing of our heart does nothing to stop our longing. I turn on the television, there is violence everywhere, man killing man, brother killing brother, lovers murdering lovers.
As a child, I was taught boys don't cry, today hardly anything moves my heart. I am hardened by the storms of life. Yet as I scan this world for my place under the sun and even as I wonder why I am, what is the meaning of this farcical drama you and I call life. The society I live in is cynical, where each man is for his own self. Neighbors do not love each other as much as they love opportunity. Blood thins between brothers in the shadow of opportunities. Yet at the individual level, there is an unmistakable thirst for love, eternal and satisfying. There is one secret longing I have, is there a place, where I am not just a number in a file, a mere insignificant blip nothing, a collateral damage. I scan every place, every thought, every religion and I have now come to the cross.

There hangs a man, I have never met, yet in His eyes, I am not just an insignificant number in a file or a number in his cell-phone neither am I mere collateral damage. His drops of blood have softened this hardened heart. As I stare into His pain filled eyes, I see myself more clearly. As I fall to my knees, my heart is overwhelmed with a million unspeakable emotions. I have finally found my Father and He looks from the cross at me, His eyes say it all. Here I have found myself. I have found Love in Flesh and Blood. Here I have found the greatest reason for my existence, that I should discover Him like I just did, I am compelled to fall on my knees and worship Him, for His glory I exist and for His worship I breathe. In Him I see a spring of inexhaustible love, a spring that would never run dry, where my hardened heart has found tenderness and loving kindness. I lift my eyes to behold my Father and my King and He looks down from the cross and calls me by name and says, "you mean the world to me." You see I love Jesus because I mean the world to Him.

He is my friend, my Father, my Lord, my God. I do not fear Him. I am compelled to love Him because day after day, as I wake up, and get ready to battle for my existence, I finally have found what I have longed for. I have finally found a person to whom I am not a number, an insignificant collateral damage. I have found my God to whom I meant so much that He gave Himself to death for my sake. In Charles Wesley's words, this is the love that compels me and forces me give Him my worship, my love and my all. I love Jesus because to Him I mean the world.