Mark 10:21

Jesus looked at him and loved him…

Today when I was reading through Mark 10 I got to verse 21 and stopped for a moment. I continued through chapter 10 and then came back to the beginning of verse 21 over and over. “Jesus looked at him and loved him…” For some reason it struck me so much today. I think because I have been struggling so greatly with my addiction issue that I often forget how great, how deep, how high, how wide His love for me truly is. But this simple statement here in the middle of chapter 10 just drew me back to the simple fact of His beautiful and infinite Love for us.

Jesus was telling the young man in this verse that in order to enter the Kingdom of Heaven he needed to give up everything and follow him. Jesus knew the outcome, knew how the man would react, yet He looked at him and Loved him.

Over and over I read these seven simple words and I understood the truth that no matter what I do, no matter how I mess up, I am Loved, and that fact will never change. Yes, I have read of His great Love for me many times in many places in the bible, yet for some reason, the simplicity and truth and beauty of these seven words broke through to me in a way I have never perhaps understood before.

Lord, thank you for looking on me with Love. Thank you for the beauty in the ways you express that Love to us every day. Thank you for the way you showed Your Love to us all through the greatest sacrifice of all so that we would forever know of that great, unending Love for us.