Episode Transcript
CONSECRATION
Wake up, sleeper, rise from the dead, and Christ will shine on you.
Jesus, I belong to you.
I lift up my heart to you.
I set my mind on you.
I fix my eyes on you.
I offer my body to you as a living sacrifice.
Jesus, we belong to you.
Praying in the name of the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Spirit, amen.
SCRIPTURE
Isaiah 53 NIV
Who has believed our message
and to whom has the arm of the Lord
been revealed?
He grew up before him like a tender shoot,
and like a root out of dry ground.
He had no beauty or majesty to attract us to him
nothing in his appearance that we should
desire him.
He was despised and rejected by mankind,
a man of suffering, and familiar with pain.
Like one from whom people hide their faces
he was despised, and we held him in low esteem.
Surely he took up our pain
and bore our suffering,
yet we considered him punished by God,
stricken by him, and afflicted.
But he was pierced for our transgressions,
he was crushed for our iniquities;
the punishment that brought us peace was on him,
and by his wounds we are healed.
We all, like sheep, have gone astray,
each of us has turned to our own way;
and the LORD has laid on him
the iniquity of us all.
He was oppressed and afflicted,
yet he did not open his mouth;
he was led like a lamb to the slaughter,
and as a sheep before its shearers is silent,
so he did not open his mouth.
By oppression and judgment he was taken away.
Yet who of his generation protested?
For he was cut off from the land of the living;
for the transgression of my people he
was punished.
He was assigned a grave with the wicked,
and with the rich in his death,
though he had done no violence,
nor was any deceit in his mouth.
Yet it was the LORD’s will to crush him and cause him
to suffer,
and though the LORD makes his life an offering
for sin,
he will see his offspring and prolong his days,
and the will of the LORD will prosper in his hand.
After he has suffered,
he will see the light of life and be satisfied;
by his knowledge my righteous servant will
justify many,
and he will bear their iniquities.
Therefore I will give him a portion among the great,
and he will divide the spoils with the strong,
because he poured out his life unto death,
and was numbered with the transgressors.
For he bore the sin of many,
and made intercession for the transgressors.
CONSIDER THIS
What is love? For years, human beings have asked this question. Love is often misunderstood. It’s commonly reduced to fleeting emotions, romantic affection, or the feelings we have for something or someone we value. For Christians, love is more than an emotion—it’s the defining mark of our faith. If love is so central, followers of Jesus must ask a similar question: What is love according to God?
The clearest answer is found in Jesus. Love is not fleeting feelings or performance-based but grounded in a real, historical event: the cross. This is the place where God’s love is most clearly defined and demonstrated to us.
Isaiah 53 is a prophecy about the coming Messiah, written centuries before Jesus lived. It paints a vivid picture of God’s love through the suffering of His servant. We begin our focus on love with this text because it gives profound insight into what the Messiah would be like, what happened on the cross, and the nature of God’s love.
According to the passage, the cross teaches us a few things about God’s love.
1. God’s love is sacrificial: “He was pierced for our transgressions, . . . crushed for our iniquities” (v. 5a). The cross reveals that love involves personal cost. Jesus bore the punishment we deserved, taking on the weight of our sins so we could be healed and restored. True love, as God demonstrates it, is not self-seeking; it willingly lays down personal comfort, preference, and privilege for the good of another.
2. God’s love brings healing and peace: “The punishment that brought us peace was on him, and by his wounds we are healed” (v. 5b). God’s love doesn’t stop at removing guilt; it actively restores and reconciles. The cross brings us peace with God, one another, and creation, and heals the deepest wounds in us. Love, in its truest form, seeks the flourishing of its recipients.
3. God’s love is a willing choice: “He was oppressed and afflicted, yet he did not open his mouth; he was led like a lamb to the slaughter” (v. 7a). Love is not coerced; it is chosen. Jesus willingly endured suffering for our sake. He laid down His own rights as the Son of God and became human to redeem the world.
4. God’s love is demonstrated in action: “Surely he took up our pain and bore our suffering” (v. 4a). Jesus did not merely express love in words—He acted. He entered into our brokenness, bore our burdens, and suffered in our place.
The first letter of John affirms this notion and encourages us to love in the same way: “This is how we know what love is: Jesus Christ laid down his life for us. And we ought to lay down our lives for our brothers and sisters” (1 John 3:16).
As followers of Jesus, our lives are to be marked by love—not mere sentiment, good feelings toward others, or even the withholding of bad, like judgment or gossip. Love, as defined by God, is sacrificial and selfless. It is laying down one’s life for another, even when they don’t deserve it.
But what does it look like to lay down our lives in love? First John 3 continues: “If anyone has material possessions and sees a brother or sister in need but has no pity on them, how can the love of God be in that person? Dear children, let us not love with words or speech but with actions and in truth” (vv. 17–18). The word pity here doesn’t quite convey the depth of action intended. The ESV translation offers greater clarity: “If anyone has the world’s goods and sees his brother in need, yet closes his heart against him, how does God’s love abide in him?” (v. 17).
An open heart toward those in need indicates the presence of God’s love in us. This reflects the active, compassionate posture of Jesus toward us in our need. In His abundance, He came to us in our poverty. His heart was open toward us. The love of God moving toward us and abiding in us always moves us toward the other.
To answer the question “How does God define love?” we look to the cross and find that love is a person: Jesus. God defines love by Himself. Love is not fleeting emotion or conditional affection; it is sacrificial action, rooted in God’s character and revealed in Jesus’s life, death, and resurrection.
RESPONSE PROMPTS
What stands out to you about God’s love as described in today’s text? I listed four things the passage reveals about God’s love. Would you add anything to that list, either from today’s text or another passage of Scripture? What opportunities has God placed before you to demonstrate love through action, particularly when it costs you something?
PRAYER
Jesus, thank You for Your sacrifice on the cross. Thank You that You are the perfect revelation of love, that You looked upon us and Your heart was open toward us. Fill us with Your Holy Spirit, that we might abide more deeply in Your love and walk faithfully in Your command to lay our lives down for one another, particularly when it’s inconvenient or requires sacrifice on our behalf. Amen.
