Last night I went into the hills to pray and reflect on the love of God. I found myself sitting on a rock on the side of a canyon and with tears in my eyes, wondering how Jesus must have felt when He sat there on the mountain the night before He would die, looking down over the city of the people who, though He loved them, had rejected Him and would hand Him over to be crucified. Sitting there, looking out over the city as the sun went down behind the magnificent Rocky Mountains, I couldn’t help but think of the pain that He must have felt…the lonliness that He was feeling, even to ask His Father why He had been forsaken. It was amazing to me how close to God I felt there at that moment when I tried to see things through the eyes of Christ. I tried to feel things with His heart.
I am humbled by the fact that this man, though more powerful than any other, would willingly give up His life just for me – so that I could be saved and live my life to please Him. I pray that I would have the mind of Christ, because what kind of thoughts must He have had to have been willing to die for us? He must have had the purest thoughts, full of love, compassion and forgiveness. I pray that I would have these thoughts everyday in every situation with everyone that I come in contact with.
When someone says to me that they don’t believe in God – that they don’t believe that a man could die and rise again 3 days later – I can’t help but wonder where their heart is. Even if I couldn’t feel the very tangible evidence of Christ in my heart that I do, I believe that I would be willing to follow any man who would submit Himself to the most humiliating and cruel punishment and execution just to say He loves me. He did this just so I would know that He loves me. How could anyone reject Him? How could anyone deny His truth or mock His name? How could you refuse the love that is so readily available if you just acknowledge that He is who He is?
I would ask one question to anyone who would refuse my Jesus – Would you die for what you believe in? Jesus believed in what His Father sent Him here to do. If Jesus had not really risen from the dead just like He said, then tell me why the very men who denied even knowing Him just 3 days earlier would later give their lives and die the death of a martyr for the gospel of Jesus Christ. They did this because they saw Him again! It wasn’t the end of Jesus when He was buried in that tomb in Jerusalem. Jesus got up and is alive today! These men who were ultimately executed for their faith, had once denied that they even knew Jesus for fear of being killed, but why would they, after His death, suddenly claim that they do know and love and support Jesus? They saw Him again. Jesus is not dead, He is alive.
