40 Days of Purpose

The explicit claims Jesus made about His authority, Him as Messiah, and His God-ness, ultimately did him in. It was not His expansive love shown for every person he encountered. Now, this is not an excuse for our own hard-heartedness or a reason to distance ourselves from sinners and tax collectors. We need Jesus’s example of love. People will know us by our love.

Jesus was not killed for being too inclusive and too nice. The Jewish leaders may have objected to Jesus’s far-reaching compassion, but they wanted him dead because he thought himself the Christ, the Son of the living God. If Jesus simply loved people too much he might have been ridiculed by some. But without his claims to deity, authority, and the fulfillment of Old Testament prophecy, he likely would not have been executed.

So as we approach another Resurrection Sunday, let’s certainly talk about the compassion and love of Jesus; but if we don’t talk about his unique identity as the Son of God, we have not explained the reason for his death, and we have not given people a reason to worship Him.

No one took His life!! He Gave His Life!!

40 Days of Purpose