I Met a Man
And to know him is to love him.
The people who really know him talk about him with a softness in their eyes. I realised I knew a lot about him, but didn’t know him.
And there’s a difference.
So the more I got to know him, the more captivated I became by him. His compassion, his humility, his love for others, but it was two specific things about him that made him capture my heart forever, two things that make me wonder how anyone could not fall in love with him.
- His radical truthfulness:
Jesus Christ calls sin sin. When I met him, I was lost, stumbling about in the dark, painfully aware of my mixed motives, flawed desires and a profound selfishness that darkened everything I did and prevented me from loving other people as I should. He was truthful about my condition and pointed out the darkness inside of me that prevented me having a relationship with a holy God, as I had accumulated a debt of lifelong offences against Him. - His radical commitment.
Jesus Christ is so committed to me that he suffered being abandoned by his friends, arrested and was made to stand in a fake trial in which he was falsely accused. He was then beaten and mocked and executed, suffering the loneliest and most agonising death in the universe, rejected by all, even God, He died the death I should have died and rose again — so that I can live with Him forever.
And can it be? I have a Saviour and I am free!
And that means I don’t have to do anything to earn God’s love or mercy. The chasm between us has been bridged by Jesus sacrifice. He loves me freely, unconditionally and relentlessly. He pours out mercy and grace on me.
And that means that there is a joy and hope and peace available in Jesus that not even the deepest pain, grief or disappointment can take from me.
And that means that though life here is often wonderful, I’d be happy to die sixty seconds from now, because if I did, I’d be going to spend forever with Him who loved me most, when I was my least lovable.
I met a man and it changed everything.
“The gospel is this: We are more sinful and flawed in ourselves than we ever dared believe, yet at the very same time we are more loved and accepted in Jesus Christ than we ever dared hope.”
