Magnified Love of Christ for You

“This is love: not that we loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son as an atoning sacrifice for our sins”. 1 John 4:10

Simon Peter claimed to love Christ the most. “Peter declared, "Even if everyone else deserts you, I will never desert you." Matthew 26:33. Peter also said, “…Lord, I am ready to go with you to prison and to death.” Luke 22:33. Later, this rash confidence in the strength of his own faith was proved false as he denied Christ three times. Romans 12:3 says, “For by the grace given me I say to every one of you: Do not think of yourself more highly than you ought, but rather think of yourself with sober judgment, in accordance with the faith God has distributed to each of you.” The only sure thing we know is the love of Christ for each one of us. We can trust this love to uphold us. Apart from Christ we are not worth much.

Unlike Peter, John actively felt this love of Christ and thought of himself as ‘the disciple that Jesus loved”. He did not dwell on his love for Christ and what he could do for him, but on how much Christ loved him. As with a magnifying glass that intensifies the light of the sun to heat that can light a fire, John magnified the love Christ to all of us so that it burned hot in him. This focus sustained him such that he was the lone disciple who stood by Christ when he died at the cross, and it is to him that Jesus entrusted the care of his loving mother. “When Jesus saw his mother there, and the disciple whom he loved standing nearby, he said to his mother, "Dear woman, here is your son," John 19:26.

Instead of bragging like Peter how much we love Christ, let us demonstrate our commitment by walking step by step in the glow of his magnificent love for us. Let us think of ourselves as individuals that Jesus greatly loves and cares for and draw our strength from him.

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God loves each of us as if there were only one of us.  ~St. Augustine

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