The Word of God in John 15:13 says, "Greater love hath no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends." The Lord came here while we were yet sinners and gave His life for us. (Romans 5:8) The Holy Bible says that perhaps for a righteous man one will die; but for an unrighteous man, none would give his life. God's love was indeed very great because when He came, none of us were righteous. None of us were good. We were all concluded under sin. But He came and gave His life for us. There is no love greater than that. In the beginning, God created everything. He created the heavens and the earth. He created the firmament. He created all of the stars and the planets. He created this earth and all that is herein. And the Bible says that on the sixth day, God created His most important creation-man. Everything else that God created was created by the word of His mouth. When He said, "Let there be light," there was light! But the Bible says that God created man in a special way. He scooped dust from the ground, formed it and breathed into it the breath of life, and man became a living soul. (Gen. 2:7) And God told man, "I will give to you all of Creation. You will rule everything. All that you can see are yours. Here in the Garden, you can eat the fruit from all of the trees except for one - the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. For the moment you eat from this tree, you will surely die." (Gen. 3:15-17) Now, all of God's creations are under the jurisdiction of His power except for one thing; and that is the power of choice that had been given to man. God did not invade our will power to choose what we want to do. We are a free moral agent. We have the power to choose! We can even choose to disobey God or obey Him; accept Him or reject Him. This choice was also given to our first parents, Adam and Eve. But what did they do?

The Sin of Disobedience

By that time, the devil had already been thrown down to the earth. He became envious of man because man had the very position that the devil wanted-inheritor of everything that God had created. So the devil said, "I will deceive man." The devil entered into the serpent. You know the story, he deceived Adam and Eve and they disobeyed God. That was when sin came into the world. Sin is disobedience to the will of God. Sin is the trespassing of God's law. Adam and Eve trespassed against God's law that day. So sin entered into the life of man. When sin entered, the devil knew that death would enter also. If sin came in, curse would also come in. That was how man was removed from the will of God through his own choice. Man was cast out from the Garden of Eden, and that was when the curse began. Weeds began to grow from the ground. Thorns and thistles sprang up. Animals became wild. The lion and the tiger became ferocious. Man was driven from the Garden of Eden because he had sinned against God. Man was under the curse. It was his sin that served as the wall of separation between man and God, but God wanted to restore man to Himself. But how, when man was sinful? It was then that a plan was made to redeem you and me back to God. It was called the plan of redemption! All men are born sinful because of the sin of disobedience that we had inherited from Adam and Eve. We cannot break free from this bondage of sin! We do not have the power. And so God made a plan to redeem man and restore him to the Garden of Eden. And He first planned to do this through His mighty and terrible power! In the Old Testament, God showed his mighty power many times and men trembled. They trembled in Egypt . They trembled in the desert. They trembled at the Red Sea . They trembled at Sodom and Gomorrah , but there was no change in their lives. So the destructive power of God failed to change man. Man still could not return to fellowship with God! So God made a perfect plan, which was going to be perfected not by force, and not by mighty power. He said, "As the devil had deceived man to use his freedom of choice to commit sin, I will come down and do the same. I will let man use his own freedom of choice to get away from Sin." So He came without our asking Him to come. It was a voluntary leaving of the portals of glory to come down to this earth full of sin and iniquity! It was the God of heaven, displaying Himself in vulnerability. John 3:16 says, "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."

Love in Demonstration

He came and walked among us. The Bible says that He walked around the dusty shores of Jerusalem, Judea, Galilee and Samaria doing that which was good; healing the sick, letting the lame walk. Lepers were being healed. The dead were being raised. The blind did see. It was love in demonstration. He came to get the glory from the hands of the devil and free us from the prison wall we call sin. Jesus Christ as the Bible says, was like a lamb that was ready for the slaughter. He opened not His mouth. He remained silent, no matter what the people did to Him, He returned good. We fell into the ground, broken into pieces, but Jesus Christ came and lovingly picked up all the broken pieces of our lives and fit them together delicately once again. He wanted to create us in His own image. Not by means of power, but by the power of love! Jesus Christ needed to do everything through love. If He had made a single mistake and did something not through love, but by His mighty power, this salvation plan would fail! Through love, man would be saved! Through love, the Lord went deep into our hearts, into our spirit where sin has taken root! The Bible is not complete without the supreme story of God's love sacrificing for us. In his earthly ministry, false accusations flowed thick everywhere Jesus went, saying that He was an impostor, that He was a deceiver and that He was not true, that His claims as a Messiah were all false and that He was deceiving the people. That He was a cult. He was like a sheep going to the slaughter, but he opened not His mouth. Pilate asked the people, "What will I do with this Jesus of Nazareth?" And the people cried, "Crucify Him!" At that very moment, the love of God was displayed among men. He stood there, without saying a single word. He was alone. He walked through what we are walking through. He was human like us. He was tempted in all points as we are tempted, yet He was without sin. When He was delivered into the hands of the people, He was arrested. He was stripped of His clothes. He was mocked. He was reviled. His face was beaten. He was spat upon. He did not speak against the people. His heart was not angered. He gave Himself for the sins of men. They laid bare His back. He was tied on the scourging post, His back facing His tormentors. The Roman soldiers had a whip. This whip had tails made of leather. In the center of that leather was a steel ball. Attached to it was a hook with three heads. These three heads had nine tails. When these tails are scourged at your back, each of the nine tails would imbed deep into your skin. Your skin will split open as the hooks pierced your body, deep into your flesh. These 9 hooks, times 3 is equal to 27 hooks, when pulled back, would bring skin and flesh along with it. The Lord received thirty-nine stripes on His back. The Bible says that He was wounded for our transgressions. He was bruised for our iniquities. The chastisement for our sins was upon Him and by His stripes we are healed. Hallelujah! They took a thorny vine called the Jerusalem vine. They formed this into a crown, purposely made smaller than Jesus' head. They tied strings on both sides. And as they set it upon Jesus head, they pulled the strings down so that the thorns pierced deeply into Jesus' head. The blood began to spurt from Jesus brow, flowing down over His eyes, over His face. Isaiah 53:2 foretold the passion of Jesus Christ . He said, "there was no beauty that we should desire Him." They took the Lord and made Him carry a big cross down the way we call the Via Dolorosa. He carried His cross bearing our sins, bearing our iniquity, the curse, and the debt that was upon us. In the courtroom scene of heaven, we were condemned to die because we had committed sin. But He came and stood before the judge and said, "I will take their place and I will die for them."

God's Triumph

Before He went to Golgotha 's hill, He prayed for three times and told the Father, "Let this cup pass from me." He knew that He was going to suffer. The flesh was trying to contradict the will of God. But deep down inside, there was a cause greater than the flesh. It was the cause of salvation because Jesus saw that by the disobedience of one, all have died; and by the obedience of one, all are going to live! The Lord saw this and so He did not mind the shame! He did not mind the suffering! He did not mind the cross! He did not mind the bitter cup when He saw the reward before Him. He saw you and me gathering here. He saw all of His children around the world that would come to Him by love. Jesus Christ said, "I will accept Your will. Not my will but Thine be done." So He carried the cross. When He arrived at Golgotha , the Place of the Skull, Mount Calvary , they laid Him down. His face was swollen. His back was wounded. His lips were cracked because of thirst. They took spikes that were about nine inches long and they began to nail the Savior. Every time they hammered the nails into His hands and into His feet, it was the love of God triumphing. Then His cross was pulled up. It was erected slanted slightly downward. This was calculated so that solely the spikes in the hands and feet will hold the weight of the body. This was the Romans' ultimate tactic for convicted prisoners to suffer. The Lord was crucified in this fashion for six hours, hanging between heaven and earth, suspended in the air. Medical doctors say that a man crucified in this manner will not die because of the loss of blood. A man crucified in this fashion will die because of the irregular beating of his heart. So I therefore conclude, that Jesus Christ died of a broken heart. He was broken hearted because of you and me. When Jesus Christ said, "Father, it is finished!" That means He had done it. "I came and I conquered by the power of love!" This love displayed on Calvary is the same love that is now drawing us to Him like a magnet. Nobody has forced you to come before Him! Nobody forced you to receive Him as your personal Savior! Nobody told you by force to accept Him! Nobody will curse you if you will not obey His words! You came to Him because you love Him. What does the Bible say? "Greater love hath no man than this that a man will lay down His life for His friends." (Jn.15:13) This is the power of love. It is that power that will deliver you from demon possession. It is that power that will deliver you from diseases and sickness. It is that power that will deliver you from financial distress. And it is that power that will deliver you from the darkness of sin. This is the power of love. If you ask me why I have chosen to love Him? Well, because He first loved me.