Extravagant Love

One of my favorite worship songs is called, “Your Love is Extravagant” by Casting Crowns. It is a song that praises God’s extravagant love for us in these words:
Your love is extravagant
Your friendship, it is intimate
I feel I'm moving to the rhythm of Your grace
Your fragrance is intoxicating in the secret place
Cause Your love is extravagant…

Pastor Adam Hamilton recently wrote an article about Christ’s extravagant love on the cross that reminds us that Jesus did not choose the cross as a means of changing God or making God’s forgiveness possible. Instead, the cross is about changing you and me- it is a call to action. In Jesus, we find a model of the purest kind of love. As Pastor Hamilton points out, it is a love that says, “Do you see the extent of the Father’s love yet? Do you understand that I have come so that you might finally hear of a love that is willing to suffer, yea, even to die in order to win you over?” In this kind of love, our hearts should be moved to model that selfless example of love to those who surround us in this world. The accounts of Jesus’ passion serve as a reminder that humanity is indeed broken, and only the purest kind of love can heal its wounds. We find this in the accounts themselves- the disciples flee, Peter denies Jesus, Judas betrays, the soldiers mock, etc., and Jesus continues to love. We are meant to be changed, to be moved, by hearing of the cross. We are meant to hear of these accounts and be called to repentance. We are meant to take this kind of love and run with it- to show selfless love to others and to praise the One who taught us this kind of love- this rich, pure, extravagant love. How can we look upon the cross and not feel moved by such an extravagant love? How can we look upon the empty tomb and not feel a rush of grace, of victory, of a love that has conquered all things? As we move forward into the Easter season, may we find that extravagant love of our Savior in our hearts, and may we never forget to raise our hands and voices in praise of this kind of love.