God demonstrates His eternal love for us through Jesus Christ. God looked around all of creation and gave the very best He had to us and on our behalf. This gift (Jesus Christ) is the ultimate expression and vindication of God’s love towards us and His desire to have us restored to His family.

John 3:16 - NKJV

16  For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have everlasting life.

Jesus Christ is the corporal and tangible expression of God Himself, He is also the expression of God’s love towards us. Jesus Christ exemplifies God the Father’s deepest desire to have relationship with us as sons and daughters. God’s love for us required Him to give the greatest treasure of Heaven, but did not require any work or sacrifice on our part except that we take His love and gift of reconciliation through Jesus Christ. God willingly sacrificed His only begotten son; Jesus Christ, who willingly obeyed His Father’s will because of the joy and honor the Father would bestow and because of the promise of a bride whom Christ already loved.

Hebrews 12:2 - NKJV

2  looking unto Jesus, the author and finisher of our faith, who for the joy that was set before Him endured the cross, despising the shame, and has sat down at the right hand of the throne of God.

As Christian’s this should never be lost on us; that God initiated of His own volition, the plan for our redemption. What was the “joy” that the writer of Hebrews is speaking about? It is “us” that Jesus was seeing. Jesus was looking at us through prophetic eyes. Jesus knew that through His actions on the cross He was predestinating us to have the opportunity to choose Him. It was because of His eternal love for us that He accomplished everything on the cross. That kind of love is not one that is questionable. That kind of commitment is not something that speaks of uncertainty about how God feels about us. Through God’s omniscience, He had already chosen us. He had already designated a plan for our redemption.

1 Peter 1:1-2 - NKJV

1 Peter, an apostle of Jesus Christ, To the pilgrims of the Dispersion in Pontus, Galatia, Cappadocia, Asia, and Bithynia,  2  elect according

to the foreknowledge of God the Father, in sanctification of the Spirit, for obedience and sprinkling of the blood of Jesus Christ: Grace to you and peace be multiplied.

I do not believe Peter is not saying that God selectively chose or “predestined” an elect group for Himself in some fatalistic predeterminism fashion. Jesus Christ is not an elitist. He is not willing that any person should perish and He has predestined the way for all, but there is a choice to be made.

We have but to look back to 2 Peter 3:8-9 to reinforce that. It was because of this joy, “us” or humankind that Jesus came and became an atoning sacrifice. In John 3:16 the Greek word for world is “kosmos” and it refers to all of mankind in creation. It is an all-inclusive statement, not an

exclusionary one. Jesus willingly gave Himself a ransom for His and the Father’s love of us as expressed in Philippians.

Philippians 2:6-8 - NKJV

6  who, being in the form of God, did not consider it  [a] robbery to be equal with God,  7  but  [b] made Himself of no reputation, taking the form of a bondservant, and coming in the likeness of men.  8  And being found in appearance as a man, He humbled Himself and became obedient to the point of death, even the death of the cross.

The power and magnitude of this demonstration comes into play when we receive by revelation the truth of this.

Charles Spurgeon once wrote:

“Love must express itself in deeds, as our old proverb says, “Actions speak more loudly than words.”

Love delights, too, in sacrifices. She rejoices in self-denials and the more costly the sacrifice, the better is love pleased to make it. She will not offer that which costs her nothing—she loves to endure pain, losses and crosses—and thus she expresses herself best.”

It should grip our hearts that our heavenly Father, sent Jesus so that our Father’s love could be bestowed upon us and that His name would be known to us. It should give us such confidence in the love of Jesus towards us that He gladly undertook this request of the Father. We have revealed to us through Jesus Christ the very character and self of who God the Father is and how He loves us. Jesus makes this all very

clear in His conversation with the Father.

John 17:25-26 - NKJV

25  O righteous Father! The world has not known You, but I have known You; and these have known that You sent Me.  26  And I have declared to them Your name, and will declare it, that the love with which You loved Me may be in them, and I in them.”

Both Jesus Christ the Son and God the Father were pleased to make such a sacrifice because They saw us as a treasure and highly valued. I often like to say when I am teaching or preaching on this subject that when Jesus endured the suffering and the crucifixion it was His marriage proposal to all mankind. We go out of our way to admire the romantic. When we see how a man has put so much effort and romance into a proposal it seems to solidify in the hearts and minds of those who witness it the love and commitment the man has towards his hopeful bride. If that is indication of the truth of what lies in a man’s heart regarding his beloved during a proposal, then no greater demonstration could ever be made than that which Jesus demonstrated.