In the fall of 1970, while hitch-hiking to the Strawberry Fields Rock Festival in Toronto, Canada, I was kidnapped by Jesus Christ. As a drug dazed street hippie I was quickly awakened and completely captured by the fierce love of Jesus. To this day, I am still hopelessly mesmerized by him. I have never been the same.
Furthermore, I have it on very credible evidence that I will never recover the profound sense of loss, loneliness, fear, trauma, aimlessness, hopelessness, hate and shame He has sense taken from me. I certainly hope not! Jesus has taken all of my brokenness and replaced it with his infinite saving grace.
That fateful day in 1970 I fell hopelessly in love with Jesus! I was unwittingly swept up by what would be tagged in history as the “Jesus Movement”! As a hippie my motto and mantra was ‘free love’ and ‘peace not war’. I had met the well spring of all true love and peace ~ The Very Love of God and the Prince of Peace! The following excerpt from ‘On the Love of God’ by Bernard of Clairvaux sums up my life’s purpose since coming to know this Jesus.
You ask me, “Why should God be loved?” I answer: the reason for loving God is God himself. (I encountered loves truth when I met Jesus) And why should God be loved for his own sake? Simply because no one could be more justly loved than God, no one deserves our love more. Some may question if God deserves our love or if they might have something to gain by loving him. The answer to both questions is yes, but I find no other worthy reason for loving him except himself.
God is entitled to our love. Why? Because he gave himself for us despite the fact that we were/are so undeserving. What better could he have given? If we ask why God is entitled to our love, we should answer, “Because he first loved us.” God is clearly deserving of our love especially if we consider who he is that loves us, who we are that he loves, and how much he loves us.
And who is God? Is he not the one to whom every spirit bears witness: “Thou art my God”? God has no need for our worldly possessions. True love is precisely this: that it does not seek its own interests. And how much does he love us? He so loved the world that he gave his only Son; he laid down his life for us.
1 From the very first day, we were there, taking it all in - we heard it with our own ears, saw it with our own eyes, and verified it with our own hands. 2 The Word of Life appeared right before our eyes; we saw it happen! And now we're telling you in most sober prose that what we witnessed was, incredibly, this: The infinite Life of God himself took shape before us. 3 We saw it, we heard it, and now we're telling you so you can experience it along with us, this experience of communion with the Father and his Son, Jesus Christ. 4 Our motive for writing is simply this: We want you to enjoy this, too. Your joy will double our joy! (1 John 1: 1-4, Msg)
Is there a higher purpose for living? Ron Ross
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