Every Easter season God shows me something personal and meaningful about the familiar story. This year I was led to focus on the love of Easter. In doing so I noticed more about the love that led Jesus to embrace His cross.

Being egocentric and as vain as I am, I thought it was for me that He died. While He was hanging there, He was thinking about how He couldn’t spend eternity without me. Oh, yes, and I thought He had you on His mind, too. I could understand the love He has for the whole world. I knew it was love that held Him—nothing else could hold the One who created the Universe to a shameful cross. But John 14:31 shed more light on the love that fastened Jesus to the hard wood of the cross. It was His love for His Father. John writes:

“But the world must learn that I love the Father and that I do exactly what my Father has commanded me. Come now; let us leave.”

That was that. He left the upper room where He had finished the Passover meal with His disciples and headed to the cross via the Garden of Gethsemane. In the garden, His love for God was strengthened through His authentic prayer asking if there were any other way to redeem the world than by what lay ahead for Him as He embraced His cross.

It was Jesus’ love for God His Father that motivated Him to do the unthinkable. What powerful love He has for His Father. It accentuates the love the Father has for me. I cannot know what the cross meant for God to be separated from the sinless Son that He loved. He loved the world so much that He sent His only Son to live and die and rise again as the perfect sacrifice so that anyone who believes in Jesus’- and repents of their sins is redeemed and lives eternally with God.

Jesus’ journey to the cross is about His great love for God His Father. Loving God like that is what leads us to the best way to live in this world. Living the best way in the world is not to let the devil have a hold over us, but to let our love for God steady us for whatever happens in our lives. When we have single-minded love for God, we too find the courage to embrace our cross and fulfill God’s purposes for our lives on this earth.

I want to love God like Jesus loves Him. I want to surrender to God’s ways. I want to enjoy God’s presence in my life. I want to follow His leading. I want to glorify God every day of my life.