Daily Devotion On This Day, 18th of April 2016

But God commendeth his love toward us, in that, while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us. (Romans 5:8 KJV)

O how amazing is God’s love toward us, sinners! His love toward us manifested through the death of Christ “while we were yet sinners.” No merit of ours has moved Him to love us. He was not reciprocating our love for Him, when He manifested His love in Christ’s death. Everything about us was displeasing to Him, when He acted to express His love toward us through the death of Christ. He loved us on His own. There was never an expression of love as the love of God toward us in Christ Jesus. His love is both unprecedented and unparalleled.

Everything we did warranted His wrath and complete exclusion of us from receiving any expression of His goodness. We were undeserving of His love. We were worthless, wretched sinners who were guilty of provoking Him through our defiant actions, when He manifested His love toward us.

The greatest evidence of His love for us is that Christ died for us while were yet sinners. God “spared not His own Son, but delivered him up for us all” (Romans 8:32). As Christ Himself said in John 3:16, “For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life.” To express God’s wondrous love, Christ died for us. 

When we consider the manner in which He died, we are spellbound by the greatness of His love toward us. To die for us, He stripped Himself of the glories of heaven and became a man. To be a perfect sacrifice for us, He lived a holy life. He then endured an agonising death. It was no common death. He not only suffered the violence of man’s hatred, but also the curse of God that was against the sinners for whom He died. Such was His love for us that He died bearing our sin, guilt and the wrath of God that was against us.

As the Apostle John said, “Hereby perceive we the love of God, because he laid down his life for us” (1 John 3:16). Again John said, “Herein is love, not that we loved God, but that he loved us, and sent his Son to be the propitiation for our sins” (1 John 4:10). In Ephesians 5:2, Paul said, “Christ also hath loved us, and hath given himself for us an offering and a sacrifice to God for a sweetsmelling savour.” O how He loves us! Christ’s death on the cross is the perfect evidence of God’s wondrous love toward us. Because He first loved us, may we love Him too.

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