Defining the Greatest Love Story Ever Told

“It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a single man in possession of a good fortune, must be in want of a wife.” (Pride and Prejudice, Jane Austen)

“I love you right up to the moon—and back.” (Guess How Much I Love You, Sam McBratney)

“Love is an irresistible desire to be irresistibly desired” (Robert Frost)

Love.

It’s been a topic desired, pursued, and quoted for ages. It’s been the focus of literature and film and art for just as long.

Why do we love the idea of love?

Perhaps it’s because love gives us a warm fuzzy feeling, like watching a Christmas Hallmark movie where everything is predictable but feels oh so right (and yes, okay, a little cheesy).

Perhaps it’s because love gives us a reason to live, to survive.

Perhaps it’s because love means we’re wanted, desired, cherished.

But what if there was more to love than these things? What if we were created to love?

The answer to that lies in what is arguably the greatest love story ever told.

And it starts in the most-purchased book in the world: the Bible.

Chapter 1: God Creates Everything

“In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth” (Genesis 1:1)

God has always existed.

Even before our world was born, God was simply here. Chilling and hanging out.

While this is a lot of theology to unpack, let’s use our imaginations and just picture a blank screen with God standing in the center of it.

You might be asking: “Who was He, if not the only being in existence?”

He was a God Who was perfect and sincere and whole. Loving and good. A God Who existed within a community: Him, Jesus, and the Holy Spirit.

The Trinity, the three-in-one. This community was trustworthy. It was good. It was full of love and light, and it was pure and noble. And because it was good, God wanted more people to join the party.

So He decided to create us.

In doing so, He created the ground we walk on, the horizons we look up to, the waves we surf, the sun we soak in, the rain that waters us and the food we eat. He built this very earth that sustains us and gives us life.

God didn’t create us just to show off His artistic abilities nor to prove His superiority. He simply loved us and wanted to show us His love.

Before He even uttered “Let there be light” (Genesis 1:3), He knew you. He loved you. He wanted your company.

Imagine—the God of the Universe wanting to spend time with you, as if both of you were just chilling on the couch watching a movie and eating popcorn in the evenings after a long day.

So God’s love story starts here: a perfect God in existence builds the heavens and the earth. Then He creates Adam and Eve: the first humans. He places them in their first home—the Garden of Eden—and takes an evening stroll with them every day as He catches up with them on everything that happened that day.

Everything is perfect and whole. Loving and good. Pure and noble. Just like Him.

Paradise on earth.

Chapter 2— Paradise Lost

Unfortunately, there’s a conflict and a villain in every story. Someone who wants to ruin what is good.

Enter stage right: the devil, dressed as a serpent.

As the story goes, God told Adam and Eve they could eat the fruit of any tree in the garden—all but one. Knowing this, the devil slithered on over to Eve and planted seeds of doubts in her ear.

“Did God really say, ‘You can’t eat from any tree in the garden?’” (Genesis 3:1)

Reverse psychology at its finest.

Eve corrected him and stated they could eat from all but the one in the middle of the garden, or else they would die—just as God had told them. In fact, God said they couldn’t even touch it. It was totally and irreversibly off-limits.

But the villain always knows how to twist words and manipulate feelings. So the devil assured Eve that she won’t die if she eats it. He stated that God knows if she does eat the fruit, then her eyes will be opened and she will be like God, knowing good and evil.

And honestly, this moment is when human nature as we know it was birthed. What human wouldn’t crave power? What human wouldn’t want to know more and to be on the same level as God?

The rest is history: Eve ate the fruit, she gave some to Adam, and when God called out for them later that evening for their daily stroll, they hid themselves behind leaves because they realized they were naked.

They were ashamed.

They had disobeyed. Sinned. Didn’t listen to God.

Most tragically, a perfect and pure God cannot walk with imperfection, darkness, and sin. These were the exact things the devil succeeded in tempting Eve to choose.

The perfect and pure God of the universe was now separated from the imperfect and impure humans He loved enough to create—despite knowing this would happen.

I think we forget that sometimes when reading this story. God knew this would happen before He created the world and humans. Yet . . . He did it anyway.

Why?

Because He loved—loves—us.

Paradise might be lost for now . . .

. . . but not all hope is lost.

Chapter 3 — God Still Loves & Humans Still Sin

From the moment God kicked Adam and Eve out of the garden as consequences of their disobedience, sin, and darkness, He still loved us.

And over the next several thousand years, He continues to love us relentlessly by fighting for us consistently.

Out of His broken and sinful people, He raised up leaders of faith to exemplify what it means to follow His upright law and strive to live in perfect harmony with Him. From the accounts of Genesis to Malachi, we see leaders like Noah, Abraham, Jacob, Moses, Joshua, Sampson, David, Solomon, Elijah, and so many more rise up and lead the people of Israel into a godly life where they follow His Word and strive to live a perfect life.

God knows, though, that our past in the Garden of Eden renders us spiritually incapable of achieving the perfection and purity needed for having a close relationship with Him. We doubted and disobeyed Him constantly, no matter how many times He stepped up to bat for us. We chose idols over Him, no matter how many times He proved faithful to us. We threw tantrums instead of trusting Him to provide everything He knew we needed, no matter how many times He had provided before.

And without that perfection, without those blemishes, we cannot have a relationship with Him. It’s like oil and water—as much as we can try to mix it, it just won’t.

Despite God creating a law and a system where we were required to sacrifice a perfect and unblemished lamb to atone for our sins—the blood of an innocent being for a guilty one—we just couldn’t stop ourselves from sinning and straying from the God Who loved us beyond our stubbornness and disobedience.

And we wonder why we feel so lonely, even while we’re surrounded by people sometimes.

We wonder why depression shades out any light and joy in our lives and keeps us locked behind closed bedroom doors, curtains drawn.

We wonder why we feel guilt and shame and low self-esteem so sharply in our souls sometimes.

Because deep down, our sin keeps us separated from the God Who is love incarnate. The God Who is love and light and the feeling you get when you’re surrounded by family and friends in the living room after eating a good meal as you all begin to watch a movie or play a game.

God is that feeling of being satisfied, whole, and content. Of a perfect and loving and safe community.

And He wants us to feel that way with Him, too. So all throughout Israel’s history, as leaders of faith come and go and Israel battles between faithfulness to her Creator and disloyalty, God had a plan.

And His plan involved His Son: Jesus.

Chapter 4 — Repent, for the Kingdom of Heaven is Near!

Have you ever entrusted someone with a person or item you love and cherish? A child, a pet, a family heirloom—you name it. Did you ever feel the tiniest bit out of place as you handed your loved one or cherished item over to that chosen caretaker, even though you trusted them?

I wonder if that’s what God felt like when He entrusted Mary and Joseph to raise Jesus from a baby to a grown man. God entrusted two people (that He knew and made and loved) to raise His Son in a God-fearing, loving, and disciplined home.

That’s a pretty big job. One I’m sure Mary and Joseph balked at when they received the job description after not applying for the job. But Mary and Joseph stepped up to God’s dream and role for their lives. And that’s what they did for the next 30 years.

They raise the Son of God, made also the Son of Man.

When Jesus turned 30, He started His earthly ministry. He went from town to town (calling His 12 disciples as He went) to heal, to teach, to perform miracles, to pray, to love His people. He provided care and support at a time when the Jewish leaders provided strict rules and regulations.

Remember, though, that Jesus is the one Who created these rules and regulations. He knew the true intent behind them.

So Jesus pushed the boundaries of those rules and regulations beyond the concept of religion. He pushed (and sometimes straight up shoved) to show how a relationship with Him is so much better and sweeter and purer than following religious rules centered on being good enough for Him.

Because with a relationship with Him, you don’t have to be good enough for Him.

You just come as you are, battered and worn-torn and scar-ridden. He loves you just the same as if you came to him perfect and whole and clean.

He will make you so, if you believe in Him and repent from the sins that keep you tied down, that keep sending you into battles you cannot win and gifting you with more scars.

But this didn’t matter to the Jewish leaders. They despised Jesus and His new boundaries. They despised this random man from Nazareth undermining their authority. They were the official religious scholars, not this Jesus person.

They wanted to get rid of Him.

They wanted to restore their political and religious power.

They hatched a plan.

They pulled money drawstrings and convinced Judas—one of Jesus’s very own disciples—to betray Him.

They have Jesus arrested and dragged off to questioning by the Roman leaders. Jesus is dragged back and forth between brutal floggings, several harsh questionings, moments of mocking, and ultimately a death sentence.

Crucifixion by cross. After having to carry His own cross up a hill on a freshly-flogged back. By this point, Jesus is so weak that a man named Simon has to step in to help Him carry the cross.

Right now, I want you to think of the worst pain you’ve ever felt. Maybe stubbing your toe, breaking a nail, a gunshot wound, or childbirth.

Now think of Jesus hanging on that cross.

Shifting His weight between His feet nailed to the cross and His hands nailed to the cross.

Feeling the freshly shredded back the Roman soldiers just flogged scratch against splintered wood.

Crying as the crown of thorns the soldiers pushed down on His head dug deeper into His skull and stinging.

Struggling to breath as His lungs drowned in its body’s own blood.

Watching as His mother and family and disciples and friends watch Him die a death He did not deserve.

Beyond this, I want you to imagine the heavy load that you’ve been carrying for ages on your shoulders:

the secret sins,

the dark secrets,

the temptations no one else seems to struggle with,

the loneliness,

the depression,

the anxiety,

the exhaustion,

the darkness ,

the guilt,

the shame,

the low self-esteem,

the numbness that seems to consume you every moment of every day.

Imagine someone taking this all off your shoulders and putting it on their own back.

That’s what Jesus did for you and for me when He hung on that cross, as He felt constant, excruciating, and unbearable pain.

He carried your sins, carried my sins, carried the sins of every person who was, is, and will be on His shoulders as He struggled to even draw a deep breath on that cross.

And with some of His last breaths, He muttered, “Father, forgive them, because they do not know what they are doing” (Luke 23:34).

For just a little longer, He struggles with the pain. With our weight of sins and darkness on His shoulders. With God—His Father, His companion before the world even existed—leaving Him alone on the cross, because a perfect God cannot exist in the presence of a guilty man.

On that cross, Jesus became a guilty man. Because of us. For us.

Finally, He whispered, “Father, into your hands I entrust my spirit” (Luke 23:46). And after the last syllable, He offered up His last breath.

Jesus was dead.

Separated from God.

Guilty of sins He didn’t commit yet bore nonetheless.

No longer in pain, but with our sins and darkness still square on His shoulders . . .

Love, dear reader, is not always big bouquets of roses or expensive gifts or grand public declarations.

Sometimes, love is carrying another’s burden, even if that burden ends in exchanging places and excruciating pain and ending breaths.

Jesus died that day.

But the love in His heart did not.

Chapter 5 — Because of Jesus, We are Free! The Final Victory!

And His love for us was proven once again three days later. At the very tomb where angels rolled away the huge stone blocking the entrance.

There, a miracle happened.

Jesus walked out of that grave. Alive. With nail-shaped scars on His hands and feet.

But alive nonetheless!

But our sins He carried on His shoulders?

Still in the grave!

And there they will stay, forevermore!

Jesus chose to become the very lamb or goat the Israelites in the Old Testament had to sacrifice so that its pure lifeblood would atone for their corrupted one. An exchange of the innocent for the guilty and the ashamed.

And if not for Jesus, we still would have to be sacrificing lambs.

God never wanted this life for us anyway (which is why He told Adam and Eve not to eat from that one tree). But the sacrifices were something that had to be done in order for us to be able to draw near to a God Who was perfect when we were not.

Now, because of Jesus Christ, our Lord and Savior, we are free to walk with Him in the garden again!

We no longer have to be separated from Him because of the sin and darkness that entered our world after Adam and Eve’s choice.

So that sin you’ve been struggling with since you were a preteen? That no longer has any power over you, because Jesus’s sacrificed blood covers you!

That temptation that has followed you everywhere and catches you in your weakest moments? That no longer has any power over you, for Jesus has proven it is possible to overcome temptation, and He wants to help you do so in His power and strength!

That long string of depressive episodes that has drowned you for years? That no longer has any power over you, because Jesus is the Light of the world and has defeated all the darkness!

That sense of loneliness you can’t seem to shake, no matter how many people or things you try to fill it with? That no longer has any power over you, because you now have full-time access to a God Who wants nothing more than for you to be whole, complete, and content in Him!

And Jesus . . . Jesus loved you enough to die, just so you could be whole and complete and content in Him. With Him.

So He could just have that evening stroll with you in the garden as you tell him about all you did and said and ate that day.

So He could smile as you shared everything with Him, because He truly does want to hear everything . . .

Conclusion

Some of you reading this right now may have heard this love story all your life because you grew up in church. But maybe you’re reading this and seeing it in a new light for the first time.

Some of you may not have grown up in church, but heard the basics of this story nonetheless. And maybe you’re now realizing this story is way deeper than it once seemed.

Some of you may have left the church because the idea of religion and the people who judge from pews have left a bitter taste in your mouth. But maybe you’re wondering if the religion of Christianity can be something more: a relationship with Jesus Christ Himself.

And yet others of you may not have heard this story at all. Maybe you’re intrigued, or maybe you still have doubts. Either way, it’s okay.

It’s okay because you’re here.

Because you now know that there’s a good and pure and holy God out there Who loves you with a love so fierce it’s beyond any definition or concept of love you currently have.

If you’re still not sure of God’s love story and its role in your life, don’t fret. This article, this website, and this ministry will be here. Feel free to come back as much as you need! Feel free to reach out to us with your questions. We’re more than happy to answer and to help you! 🙂

If you’re recognizing that you don’t have a relationship with God and you want one—or that you do have one but you’ve been walking a different path than Him—then check out this page with more details on God’s love story and resources for you to start your relationship with Him! Make sure to contact us so we’ll know to rejoice with you, pray for you, and welcome you into our community!

Regardless where you are right now in faith and in life, we’re glad you’re here. And know that God is glad you’re here, too! We fully believe that He led you to this page for a reason.

He loves you. Just for being you (and as He created you to be).

He wants you to know Him, just as He knows you.

Will You give him a chance to walk alongside you?