Christ’s Heart For You
Have you ever struggled with feeling unworthy of the love of Jesus? Maybe not just unworthy, but completely not fit for it? While there have been many times where someone has described or shown Christ’s love to me and it has made me feel absolutely wonderful, there have also been numerous times where someone has described to me the great, overwhelming, never-ceasing love of Christ, and it has made me want to crawl under a rock and hide. Maybe that sounds strange. The reason it sometimes makes me want to run when I hear about the over-abundant love of Christ is because I immediately think of all the wrong I’ve done in my life and how I don’t deserve a wonderful Savior like Jesus to even look in my direction. His unceasing and miraculous love for me doesn’t make sense to my sinful human mind, and I feel so undeserving of it that it can make me feel guilty for somehow receiving it.
But the thing about Jesus is that who He is at His very core, the thing that gives Him reason and meaning and purpose is love. I recently read the book Gentle and Lowly by Dane Ortlund, and in his book Ortlund speaks on one of my favorite Bible verses: Matthew 29:11. The verse says, “Take my yoke upon you, and learn from me, for I am gentle and lowly in heart, and you will find rest for your souls” (Matt. 29:11 ESV). Ortlund has a powerful way of describing what the Bible means when it speaks of someone’s heart. He writes, “...when the Bible speaks of the heart, whether Old Testament or New, it is not speaking of our emotional life only but of the central animating center of all we do” (Ortlund, 18). Basically, what this verse and Ortlund are saying is that love is the thing that moves Jesus to action. It is the thing that drives Him, the thing that He ‘gets up for in the morning.’ Whether or not we feel we deserve the love of Christ (we don’t, as we all know), He is there, wrapping us up in it like a warm blanket on a cold winter night, because love is simply who He is.
Now, if I was the ruler of the universe, and I had the ability to pick between all of the riches, power, or beauty anyone could possess or a bunch of sinners, I’m sorry to say, but the sinners probably wouldn’t be my choice. And yet, that is exactly who Jesus chose. In fact, it’s not even in the nature of Christ to choose anything else. Jesus isn’t chasing power, fame, money, whatever else we see as enticing here on earth. The thing that Jesus chases is His children whom He loves so dearly. We can’t truly understand this because of our broken human nature, but Jesus chose broken and corrupt people above anything else because of His deep, deep infatuation with us. He chose me. He chose you. He chose All. Of. Us.
On top of that, Jesus knows exactly how wicked our hearts are because not only is He God and able to see and know everything, but He lived here on earth and endured temptation to sin that was far greater than any of us will ever experience. Remember when Satan came to Jesus while He was out in the wilderness and tempted Him to sin against His Father? How many of us can say that Satan has physically met and spoken with us and tempted us to sin? I can’t even imagine the strain on Jesus at that point. I certainly wouldn’t be able to resist; but He did, making Him completely and fully able to understand how we feel when we are tempted. Not only do we have a loving Savior who fully forgives us for all our wrongs, but we have one who knows exactly what we are going through. Christ’s posture towards us is still one that is both gentle and loving, despite Him knowing how inwardly wicked our hearts can be, and that is amazing to me.
In Hebrews, Scripture talks about Jesus as our great High Priest, and in chapter four it says, “For we do not have a high priest who is unable to sympathize with our weaknesses, but one who in every respect has been tempted as we are, yet without sin” (Hebrews 4:15 ESV). Jesus knows how you feel when you are tempted. He knows exactly what you’re going through when you’re tempted, He knows what you’re hiding in the darkest parts of you, and He still wants you more than anything on earth. In fact, He wants you so much that He literally walked through Hell to offer you a chance at eternal life. There is nothing on this earth He cares more about than the destination of your soul, so much so that He was willing to come to earth and die the most detestable death ever known to save it.
“For we do not have a high priest who is unable to sympathize with our weaknesses, but one who in every respect has been tempted as we are, yet without sin”
The heart of Jesus is summed up in two words: “gentle” and “lowly.” We don’t have a Savior that sits loftily in His golden tower, looking down on us as though we are dirt under His shoe. We don’t have a Savior who is demanding of us or who holds us to an impossible-to-meet standard, because He has already taken on the punishment we deserved knowing full well we could never earn God’s forgiveness on our own. We have a Savior who meets us where we’re at to heal our brokenness and love us the way we are, but one who also loves us too much to let us stay in our sinful state. He wants to help you out of the pit you’re in because He understands our struggle; He’s been through it. Jesus wants you to find peace and rest in Him and His saving grace. He is ready to accept you just as you are. Are you willing to bring all of you —your sin, hurt, guilt, whatever it may be, and lay it down before them? He will be there with open arms whenever you’re ready to hand it over.
