John 3:16-17
God LOVES Us
16 For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life. 17 For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but to save the world through him.
John 15:12-17
Jesus LOVES Us
12 My command is this: Love each other as I have loved you.13 Greater love has no one than this: to lay down one’s life for one’s friends. 14 You are my friends if you do what I command. 15 I no longer call you servants, because a servant does not know his master’s business. Instead, I have called you friends, for everything that I learned from my Father I have made known to you. 16 You did not choose me, but I chose you and appointed you so that you might go and bear fruit—fruit that will last—and so that whatever you ask in my name the Father will give you. 17 This is my command: Love each other.
Mark 2:13-17
Jesus Came for Sinners
13 Once again Jesus went out beside the lake. A large crowd came to him, and he began to teach them. 14 As he walked along, he saw Levi son of Alphaeus sitting at the tax collector’s booth. “Follow me,” Jesus told him, and Levi got up and followed him.
15 While Jesus was having dinner at Levi’s house, many tax collectors and sinners were eating with him and his disciples, for there were many who followed him. 16 When the teachers of the law who were Pharisees saw him eating with the sinners and tax collectors, they asked his disciples: “Why does he eat with tax collectors and sinners?”
17 On hearing this, Jesus said to them, “It is not the healthy who need a doctor, but the sick. I have not come to call the righteous, but sinners.”
I often wonder and ask myself why did Jesus come to earth and then die for us...It is written, that God so LOVED the world that He sent His Son to us and for us...And if we believe in Him, we shall not die, but have eternal life...Because God did not send His Son to condemn us, knowing that we are sinners, but He came to earth to save us...
Jesus teaches us that to die for your friends is the greatest LOVE of all... There is no greater LOVE than this: to lay down one’s life for one’s friends...Jesus certainly died for us, and if you believe what He says then it is out of LOVE that He came and He taught us and He died for us, even though we are sinners...But He makes it clear that He came for sinners, and not for the righteous -when He was recruiting Levi to be one of His Disciples...
And as Jesus talks about LOVE and the LOVE He has for us, we can sense this LOVE in the words He said to His Disciples...Jesus said that this is His commandment, that we love one another as He has LOVED His Disciples...There is no greater love than someone has for another -than to lay down his life for his friends...Jesus and His Disciples were now friends...No longer would He call His Disciples servants, for the servant does not know what His master is doing; but He now calls His Disciples friends, for all that He has heard from God, He has made known to them...Jesus hand chose His Disciples, for a reason...They not choose Him, but He chose His Twelve handpicked Disciples so that after His death that they would go and bear fruit and that their fruit should be gathering other followers to learn and know about Him...And as they chose others to follow Him, these new followers would realize that whatever they would ask God in His name, He somehow and in someway would give it to them...These things He said, so that they would love one another...
He came to us out of LOVE...And through His LOVE, He saves us...