14 Reasons Jesus Went To The Cross - To Teach Us How To Love

14 Reasons Jesus Went To The Cross - To Teach Us How To Love

John 3:16

“For God so loved the world, that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him shall not perish, but have eternal life.”

Is there a greater verse in scripture? A more powerful statement in all of literature? Can there be any greater demonstration of the love of God?

When Jesus walked to the cross, He did so with love in his heart. He had been betrayed by one of His inner circle of twelve. He was abandoned by every single follower while He prayed in the garden. The closest of all, His choice to be the leader of his disciples, denied even knowing Him while he was on trial.

He was unjustly tried by the very leaders who should have fallen at His feet and begged Him for mercy. All this after He spoke these words at the table that very evening:

John 13:35

“By this all men will know that you are My disciples, if you have love for one another.”

Between the Last Supper and the resurrection, the word love occurs 33 times in the Gospel of John. That means that while He was being rebuked and denied by Peter, betrayed by Judas, arrested by the soldiers, abandoned by His followers, beaten and tortured by the Jewish Council, abused and scorned by the Romans, mocked by the crowds, and taunted by thieves … while He breathed His last words … the most prominent word to appear in John’s retelling of the cross is the word love.

He went to the cross to demonstrate the incredible power of God’s love. Love was what Jesus was all about and He literally walked the walk to prove that God not only talks love, teaches love or commands love but that God IS Love. He proved that on the cross.

Romans 8:38-39

“For I am convinced that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers, nor height, nor depth, nor any other created thing, will be able to separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord.”