I imagine someone offering me a free tree. I can choose any one I want. I take my time, carefully choosing which one I would like. Wandering the rows, trees great and small call my attention, until my eyes fall on the one. I pick it out and proclaim it is the one I want.
The person gifting this tree asks me to take another look at it. As I gaze upon its delicate branches and fragile leaves, they ask, “will you promise that this tree will live?”.
I stop in my tracks and wonder; what would it take to make such a promise? Suddenly the weight of responsibility for life falls on my shoulders, and I doubt whether I could ever possibly keep such a promise.
This is the strength of our Father, Jesus Christ, has. He has promised to take us and keep us in the highest of high places, with Him in Heaven. He has pledged to do whatever it takes to save us. He gave his life as Jesus to save you, personally.
We are small children in comparison to our Almighty Father. We don’t need to fully understand how it worked on the cross. We just need to know that it was from His pure love for each of us that He came to Earth, to show us how to live a life submitted to the will of God, with a heart full of compassion and forgiveness. Then in his tender perfection, He took the death on the cross for you, because He loves you like no other loves you.
If I can look at my tree and see a test from God, to care for life like He cares for me, how differently will I act? If I am entrusted with life, can I love it as much as Jesus loves me? He died for me because he loves me. We don’t have to understand this in its entirety, because we are tiny children! We are His babes! We are His angels!
He is the Father we expected! It is our knowledge of Him that gives us the deep knowing against which we measured our own fathers and found lacking. He is the Father we know, who loves us. He is the Father we knew before. He is the perfect Father! We know Him in our hearts, in ways we know nothing else.
My heart swells with His love! He fills me with His joy! I turn from the world towards you, Jesus Christ! You have returned to so many already! I am but a child; I cannot know the working of your miracles. I cannot decipher prophecy, and I know not how we will experience your great return. All I can testify is that when I focus on you, Jesus Christ, my Father, I feel like I have never felt before! I feel everything about myself being transformed by You, Jesus. How unexpected this is! How ignorant I was. How distracted I was while You were here all along, ready to restore me!
Jesus died to save my life. He is coming back for me. Now it is up to me to live with that Truth.
[Note: I am not saying you should die for a tree, I am simply pondering Christ’s awesome love for us with metaphor. He died to save our souls! How much love he has for us!]
Last Hope 