The Un-Imaginable Depth of Christ’s Love for Us — Zac Poonen

Summary Notes:

When we think of Jesus’ suffering, many of us picture the physical agony depicted in films like The Passion of the Christ—the beatings, the whipping, the nails, and the cross. These scenes move us to tears, as they vividly portray Christ’s physical pain. However, the true depth of Jesus’ suffering goes far beyond the physical. To grasp what happened on the cross, we must explore the spiritual suffering He endured for our sake.

The Challenge of Explaining Christ’s Sacrifice

Imagine a highly educated non-Christian, well-versed in the Bible, challenging you on the sufficiency of Christ’s death for humanity’s sins. They might ask, “How did Jesus take the punishment for your sins?” You might respond, “He died on the cross.” But they could counter, “If physical death is the punishment for sin, then everyone who dies physically has paid for their sins. Why, then, is hell necessary?”

This question reveals a critical misunderstanding: physical death is not the ultimate punishment for sin. The true consequence of sin is eternal separation from God—what we call hell. Hell is not merely fire or worms; it is the unbearable reality of being forsaken by God forever. So, did Jesus suffer this punishment? If so, how?

Correcting Misconceptions About Jesus’ Suffering

Some preachers, particularly those relying on certain translations like the King James Version, claim that Jesus descended into hell for three days after His death to endure its torments. This idea stems from a mistranslation of Acts 2, where “Hades” is rendered as “hell.” There is no scriptural evidence to support this teaching. Jesus did not suffer in hell after His death. Instead, He bore the punishment for our sins on the cross.

The True Suffering: Forsaken by the Father

The heart of Jesus’ suffering occurred during the final three hours on the cross, when darkness covered the land (Matthew 27:45). In that moment, Jesus experienced the ultimate punishment for sin: being forsaken by His Father. For the first time in eternity, He addressed God not as “Father” but as “My God, My God” (Matthew 27:46). This cry reflects a profound break in His eternal fellowship with the Father—a spiritual agony far greater than any physical pain.

In the Garden of Gethsemane, Jesus prayed fervently, “Father, if possible, let this cup pass from Me” (Matthew 26:39). He wasn’t dreading physical death or shame; He was anguished at the prospect of losing fellowship with His Father. This separation, though temporary, was the equivalent of an eternity in hell for an eternal being like Christ. Even a moment of being forsaken was an infinite weight of suffering.

Why We Struggle to Understand Spiritual Suffering

Physical pain resonates with us because we experience it in our daily lives. A pinprick or a wound grabs our attention, and we weep when we see Jesus’ physical torment. But the spiritual pain of broken fellowship with God? That often feels distant. Why? Because we are accustomed to living with broken fellowship. We sin—through anger, jealousy, or lust—and our connection with God is disrupted, yet we often carry on without distress. For Jesus, however, losing fellowship with His Father was more excruciating than any physical torture. This contrast reveals how little we value our own fellowship with God.

The Value of Fellowship with God

For Jesus, fellowship with the Father was the most precious thing. No amount of physical suffering—nails, thorns, or crucifixion—could compare to the pain of being separated from God. As we grow closer to God, we begin to understand this priority. When fellowship with God becomes our greatest treasure, no earthly sacrifice or suffering can shake our devotion to Him. A job, reputation, or even personal comfort becomes secondary to loving and serving Christ.

Personal Reflection: Seeing Jesus’ Love for You

In Gethsemane, Jesus could have chosen to return to heaven, sinless and unblemished. But He saw you—your face, your soul, your eternal destiny. He chose the cross, not because it was easy, but because He loved you enough to endure the unthinkable. This realization transformed my life. For 65 years, meditating on Christ’s love has fueled my devotion to Him. It’s why I’m willing to give up anything for Him, why no opposition can deter me, and why I feel I’ve never truly sacrificed for Him—because His sacrifice for me was so much greater.

The Greatest Commandment: Love God Fully

When asked about the greatest commandment, Jesus said, “Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind” (Matthew 22:37). This means giving God your entire being—your emotions, will, and thoughts. When we love God this way, our love for others flows through Him, unwavering and pure. But when we fail to love God fully, our love for others falters.

To sustain this love, we must meditate on Christ’s love for us. As 1 John 4:19 says, “We love because He first loved us.” By reflecting on His sacrifice, our love for Him grows stronger, unshaken by life’s ups and downs. Without this meditation, our faith becomes inconsistent, like a child who is healthy one day and sick the next.

The Power of Meditating on the Cross

Psalm 1:2-3 promises that those who delight in God’s Word and meditate on it day and night will be unshakable and prosper in all they do. Meditating on Christ’s suffering—especially His spiritual agony on the cross—transforms our perspective. It reveals the depth of His love and makes us ashamed of our half-hearted devotion or tolerance of sin. Jesus didn’t just endure physical pain; He sweat blood in Gethsemane (Luke 22:44) and faced separation from the Father for us. This truth should grip us, compelling us to live wholly for Him.

Examples of Christ’s Love in Action

Jesus’ love wasn’t confined to the cross. His life overflowed with compassion:

• The Canaanite Woman (Matthew 15:21-29): Jesus walked 70 miles round-trip to Tyre and Sidon to help one woman whose daughter was demon-possessed. Despite initially testing her faith, He praised her persistence, saying, “Woman, you have great faith!” His journey shows His willingness to go to great lengths for a single soul.
• Zacchaeus (Luke 19:1-10): Prompted by the Holy Spirit, Jesus looked up at a tree and called Zacchaeus, a despised tax collector, by name. Despite Zacchaeus’ reputation, Jesus saw his heart’s desire to change and offered him salvation.

These stories challenge us to be sensitive to the Holy Spirit, free from prejudice, and willing to act on God’s prompting to reach those in need.

A Call to Passionate Love for Christ

Shallow Christianity—believing in Jesus merely to secure heaven—is not biblical faith. True Christianity is a passionate, wholehearted love for Christ, rooted in the recognition of His sacrifice. If we love Him, we will obey Him (John 14:15), sacrifice anything for Him, and live to fulfill His purpose for our lives. Jesus asks each of us, as He asked Peter, “Do you love Me more than these?” (John 21:15). Are you willing to prioritize Him above your job, family, or reputation?

Living a Life Worth Living

You have one life to live for Christ. Much of it may already be behind you, but the days ahead are an opportunity to respond to His love. Meditate on the cross. Let the Holy Spirit make Christ’s sacrifice real to you. If you do, your life will be transformed, and you will live with purpose, unshaken by trials and devoted to the One who gave everything for you.

Closing Prayer

Heavenly Father, help us to love You with all our heart, soul, strength, and mind. Reveal the depth of Jesus’ suffering on the cross, not just physically but spiritually, as He was forsaken for us. May Your Holy Spirit make this truth real to each person here, transforming their lives for eternity. Let no one leave unchanged, but gripped by Your love. In Jesus’ name, Amen.

Complete Notes:

The Misunderstood Suffering of Jesus

Many of us, perhaps, don’t understand what exactly took place on the cross. Every movie that we have seen about Jesus shows us the physical sufferings of Christ—being beaten, whipped, nailed, hammered—and we weep. I know I have wept many times when I see how much He suffered for me, particularly films like “The Passion of Christ.” You see how much He suffered, but that part was all physical suffering, and then, finally, He died.

Wrestling with the Meaning of the Cross

Now, I have, you know, when I’ve tried to understand the scriptures, I’ve tried to look at it like this: Supposing a very educated, intelligent non-Christian, who knew the Bible thoroughly, asked me some questions, would I be able to answer them? And this is the way I picture it. Here’s a very intelligent non-Christian arguing against the death of Christ, uh, being sufficient for man’s sin. And he asks me like this, “Okay, Zac, tell me, um, how did Jesus take the punishment for your sin?” I say, “He died for my sins on the cross.” “Oh, so, Zac, you say that death, physical death, is the punishment for sin, right?” “Yeah. He died for my sins.” “If that be the case, Zac,” this man is telling me, “if you have committed sins in your life and God kills you physically, you have paid the punishment for your sin, then He should take you to heaven because that’s what Jesus took.” And I’m stuck. What answer will you give? If physical death is the punishment for sin, then when you die, you’ve been punished for your sin. God should raise you up and take you to heaven. But I know. But I say, “Hey, hang on. No, no, no. Let me correct that.” I tell him, “Physical death is not the punishment for sin. The punishment for sin is being forsaken by God forever. And that’s what we call hell, more than the physical fact of hell or worms or fire or anything. The fact is you’re forsaken by God forever.” “Oh,” she said, “Okay.” So then, did Jesus suffer hell if that is the punishment for sin? And then, if I don’t know the answer, again, I’m stuck.

Correcting Misinterpretations of Jesus’ Suffering

Now, there are some charismatic preachers today who stick to the King James Version of the Bible, who read in Acts chapter 2, then, King James Version, that Jesus descended into hell for three days, and the word is not hell. The word is Hades, which has been wrongly translated by the King James Version as hell, but it’s translated in the new, in the NASB, as Hades. But they take that and say, after Jesus died—this is wrong teaching, by the way—after He died, He went for three days to hell and suffered all the agony of hell, and then He came out of the grave. There’s not a verse in scripture to prove that. It’s a completely wrong teaching, but there are a lot of people who preach it and believe it among some of today’s famous television preachers. But then we ask ourselves, if the punishment for your sin is hell, Jesus had to suffer that, otherwise He has not taken your punishment. Physical death cannot be the punishment for your sin because that everybody gets, and those who die physically, nobody would go to hell then because everybody dies physically has taken the punishment.

The True Suffering: Forsaken on the Cross

If hell is the punishment for sin, then Jesus faced it. Where did He face it? He faced it on the cross. The first three hours, as far as we know, He was not forsaken. There were other things happening, but the last three hours, it was darkness. And that was the time when He was forsaken by His Father. And that’s why He cried out, the only time in His life when He said to His Father, “My God, My God.” Do you know that Jesus, in His, in from eternity past till eternity future, never called God “God” except once. He always called Him “Father, Father, Father, Father, Father, Father.” Except once. He said, “My God, My God.” Why? Because at that moment, something was broken of His connection with His Father. And He was standing there, facing the guilt of the judge, in front of the Judge of the whole universe, facing the guilt of our sin.

The Agony of Gethsemane

And that is what He prayed so much for in Gethsemane, saying, “Oh Father, please don’t let me have to drink this cup.” He wasn’t afraid of physical death. He wasn’t afraid of the shame. He wasn’t afraid of anything. But one thing He didn’t want was that breaking of the connection with the Father, something like somebody wrenching off your head. If somebody caught your head and twisted it and wrenched it off, that would be a small picture of the spiritual pain that Jesus faced when the Bible says, “Christ, God is the head of Christ.” And He said, “Father, isn’t there some other way?” I mean, “You and I have had fellowship for eternity.” He was praying in Gethsemane. That’s why it took one hour. Then He prayed three times, perhaps three hours. “Isn’t there any other way? Do I have to break? I mean, I don’t mind. I’m willing to die a thousand times physically, be shamed, ridiculed, mocked, everything. Ten thousand crowns of thorns? Oh, no problem. But this break of fellowship with the Father. Father, You and I have had that for eternity. You mean I have to break it?”

Why We Fail to Grasp the Spiritual Suffering

Now, you know, when I say that, it doesn’t grip us so much. Physical pain we can understand. That’s why we weep so much when we see those movies where Jesus is being hit and whipped and crucified. But we don’t weep when we hear that His fellowship with the Father was broken. You know why? Because we are so used in our life to fellowship being broken with God all the time. You have a grudge against somebody, and, um, you don’t set it right. Your fellowship with the Father is broken. But you live merrily for the next few days. There are husbands and wives who don’t talk to each other for two, three days. They have no fellowship with the Father during those two, three days, but they live merrily, happily. There are very few Christians, I would say one in a million believers, who understand what fellowship with the Father is—the most precious thing of all. Most of us, you can tell a lie and not have a botheration about it. Your fellowship with the Father is broken immediately, but you continue. You lust after a woman, your fellowship with the Father is broken. You continue. You get angry. You masturbate. You do things. Your fellowship with the Father is broken. You continue. It’s, it’s nothing to us. We are breaking fellowship with God all the time. You got a jealousy against somebody. Fellowship with the Father is broken. It doesn’t bother you. Anger, bitterness, so many things we’re doing all the time. Fellowship with God is broken. It doesn’t bother us. And that’s why we don’t value it.

Valuing Fellowship Over Physical Pain

But physical pain, if somebody pokes us with a pin, that bothers us so much. It was not like that for Jesus. You could nail Him to a cross, it wouldn’t bother Him. But if fellowship with the Father was broken for one moment, it would disturb Him more than ten thousand crowns of thorns, ten thousand crucifixions. And when you get closer to God in your walk with Him, it’ll be the same for you. That fellowship with the Father will be more important than any amount of physical pain. And no amount of torture will make you deny Jesus Christ when you get close to God. But if you’re not close to God, for the sake of a little increment in your job, you will deny Jesus Christ. You will hide the fact that you’re a Christian to get some benefit somewhere. It’s, it’s amazing.

Personal Journey to Understanding

So, there are situations like this where we discover that fellowship with the Father doesn’t mean much to us, and that’s why we don’t understand what Jesus suffered in those three hours. I myself, I’ll tell you this, for many, many years after I was born again, I never understood this. I had to get close to God to understand this. I’ve never read it in a book till today. You never read in a book about these type of things. I’ve never heard a cassette on it, a message on it anywhere. But it is the truth of God, that that is what He, and this is how I feel it happened in Gethsemane when He said, “Father, isn’t there any other way?” And I can imagine, if I were imagining a conversation there between the Father and the Father, and the Father says, “Okay, You haven’t sinned. You can come straight up from Gethsemane to heaven. You can come up right now. You don’t have to go through that, but those people there, they’ll all go to hell.” And there in Gethsemane, Jesus thought of me. I like to make it personal. He thought of me. My face came before Jesus in Gethsemane. I want to believe it like that. You can believe it like that, too. It’ll make you love the Lord more. It made me love the Lord more. My face came before Jesus, and He thought of me going to hell forever. And He said, “Okay, Father, I’ll go to the cross.”

Personal Devotion Fueled by Christ’s Love

That’s why I’m devoted to Jesus Christ. That’s why I do anything for Him. That’s why I’ll give up anything for Him. That’s why I’ll live my whole life only for Him. That’s why I’m not bothered if the whole world turns against me. And when I preach these truths, it doesn’t matter to me if six billion, six billion people in the world turn around and call me a false prophet. I know what Jesus went through a little bit. And I say, “Lord, forgive me that I’m so half-hearted, not dedicated. Forgive me that I don’t hate sin as I should when I think of what You went through on that cross for me.” I see His love for me at Gethsemane, that He didn’t go straight up to heaven from there when He could have, but He got up and went to the cross. He could have pulled Himself down from the cross. He could have called seventy-two thousand angels to come and save Him. But He didn’t because He saw my face, and He saw what would happen to me for all eternity. And He said, “For Zach’s sake, I’ll go through.”

The Greatest Commandment

When people came to Jesus and asked Him, “What is the greatest commandment in the law?” Of course, for those Jews, the greatest commandment was keeping the Sabbath. He said, “The greatest commandment is to love God with all your heart, all your strength, and all your mind,” which means to love God with our total personality, where there’s, which means that in our affection, there’s no place for anybody else. And if we love people, it is through our love for God. That’s why He said we got to love God with all our heart, all our strength, and all our mind. And what’s left to love other people? Zero. Everything is for God, and then through God, we love other people. It’s because we don’t do that that we find we stop loving some people. The problem is that we don’t love God with all our heart, soul, and strength.

Sustaining Love Through Meditation

And in order to love the Lord with all our heart, soul, and strength, there is only one way. We can love the Lord for all the good things He’s done. And then we can have complaints when He doesn’t do something that we expect Him to do for us. And then love can wane, go down. But the greatest way in which our love can increase for Him is by following the word which says, “We love Him because He first loved us.” So, if you meditate on how He first loved you, your love for Him will never, never go down. Love declines in our life because we stop remembering or meditating on how much He loved us.

The Unreliability of Wavering Love

The reason so many Christians have an up-and-down experience—sometimes up, sometimes down, and you never know where they are one day because you don’t know whether they’re down or up that day—and that’s not God’s will. How would you think if you had a child that was sick one day and healthy the next day and sick the next day, and you never know when it’s sick and when it’s healthy all the time, up and down? You’d feel terrible. Well, I think God feels terrible about a lot of people whose love is like that. It’s completely unreliable. How would your wife feel if your love for her was one day you loved her and the other day you didn’t, or your husband? And so, we need to meditate on how much God loved us. And if we are gripped by that, then we will love Him in return.

Personal Testimony of Transformation

And now, that’s a very common statement. Everybody says it. But I know, if you think about it seriously, it can make a world of difference in your life. And I know why I say that because I have proved it for sixty-five years, not just for a few days. And all these sixty-five years that I’ve been a Christian, that has been the major matter on which I have meditated: the love of Christ for me on the cross. And that has changed my life. I encourage you to do it. It’ll change your life. It’ll make you a spiritual Christian. You will never feel that you have ever in your life made a sacrifice for Him. I can honestly say that today before the Lord, that I don’t feel I have made any sacrifice for the Lord in my entire life.

The Danger of Superficial Sacrifice

So often, you find Christians who do a little thing for the Lord, and they think they’ve done such a lot. “I sacrificed this time. I went out of the way to do this for someone or do that for someone,” and they think it’s a great thing they’ve done for the Lord. I’ll tell you why: They haven’t seen the love of Christ on Calvary, and not only in Calvary, in Gethsemane, for the, I don’t know how many hours He was there, and it says He was sweating. I tried to find out what is the temperature in Israel in the month of March and April. It’s about 50°F. You know what 50°Fahrenheit is like? You shiver with warm clothes. Imagine sweating—sweating when the temperature is 50°. And not just sweating, but sweating blood. Meditate on that.

The Need for Deeper Meditation

I feel that many Christians read scripture, but they don’t meditate on it. And so, they treat the love of Christ so lightly as a casual thing. “Oh yeah, He loved me. He saved me. He’s forgiven me. He’s cleansed me with His blood. I’m going to heaven.” Can you talk about all that so lightly? Think, if your husband or wife went through some terrific agony or pain in order to do something for you, would you forget it? How quickly we forget these things, and the devil doesn’t want us to meditate on it. We hear it, and it’s gone.

Teaching Children to Love Jesus

We need to teach our children so that they will grow to love Jesus. That’s the greatest thing. You can tell them all the stories in the Bible. And it’s good that your children know all the stories in the Bible, and you can be proud that your children know all the stories and know the answers to Bible quizzes. But if they don’t love Jesus at the end of it all, they haven’t really got the most important thing. It doesn’t matter if you don’t know all the stories. You know that, in the first so many centuries of Christianity, children didn’t know all the stories in the Bible. There was no printed Bible. Why did God not allow the world to exist for fifteen hundred years without a printed Bible? You know what an amazing help a printed Bible is, certainly is for me and for all of us. How would we know the stories in the Old Testament if there was no printed Bible? Somebody spoke about it once, I’ll forget it. And God allowed that. The one thing Christians knew was that Jesus hung on the cross on Calvary. And even that, only those who meditated on it would understand it fully.

The Blessing of Meditation

Blessed is the man who meditates. Let me read this verse to you in Psalm 1. You can never get tired of pointing that out. “How blessed is the man who stays away from sinners.” And he doesn’t just stay away from sinners. It says here, “He delights in the law of God.” That’s in the word of God, delights in it and meditates on it day and night. Now, many people read the Bible because they’ve been told it’s a good thing to read the Bible every day. But here, it says a person delights in God’s word, to delight in the Bible and to meditate on it day and night because you delight in the Bible. It’s like reading a letter from your loved one, and it says he will be unshakable. You know why your life is shaking? Because you’re not meditating on God’s phrase. If you meditate on God’s phrase day and night, it says here, you’ll be unshakable. And here’s the best part of it, verse three, the last part: “Whatever he does, he will prosper.” Whatever he does, he’ll prosper.

The Eternal Weight of Christ’s Suffering

So, that’s why I encourage you, my brothers, to meditate, especially on the death of Christ on the cross. Let me say a little more about that. If the punishment for sin is eternity in hell, Jesus didn’t face eternity on the cross. There’s only three hours. Did He really take the punishment for my sin and for everybody’s sin? Yes, He did, because He was an eternal being. Even if He spent one minute or one second forsaken by the Father, that’s like eternity in hell. That’s what He experienced. Hell is not, as I said, not the fire and the worms. The worst part of hell is not being bitten by worms or burned in the fire. A lot of people think like that. Jesus used picture language, but the main part of hell, which I don’t think we can even understand the concept of it, is to be—God is not there. There’s no part in the world, no part of this earth, where God is not there. God is there everywhere, in some way or the other. Even the greatest sinners in the world experience something of God, but hell is—you need to meditate a little bit on what hell is like—the presence of God is not there. And I don’t think we can ever understand fully what that actually means. That’s what Jesus experienced.

Meditation as a Path to Understanding

We could ask God to help us to understand that a little bit, and then we will know what He went through. Meditation is a great help, I find, to what He went through. And you remember when Jesus met with Peter after Peter had denied Him three times in John chapter 21. It’s the last encounter we read in the Bible of Jesus meeting with anyone—that was with Peter in John chapter 21. And He asks him a question, John 21 and verse 15: “Simon, son of John, do you love Me more than these, more than all the other things in the world?” That is the question He asks. And I believe that’s the question that He’s asking every one of us as well, personally. He’s calling you by name. “Do you love Me more than anything on this earth? Do you love Me more than those, your job, which you love perhaps, or some, something you love? Think of the thing that you love the most on this earth, the thing that you love to do, maybe your parents or your husband or wife or children. Do you love Me more than these? Will you be willing to leave them and love Me? Will you love Me if I take away your children? Will you love Me more than—”

The Challenge of Prioritizing Christ

In India, you know, when non-Christians and all have to come to Christ, the biggest problem, even for many nominal Christians, the main problem is, “What will my parents think?” Imagine, to think of Jesus having suffered so much for you, and people thinking, “What will my parents think?” or “What will my relatives think?” Shame on anybody who calls themselves a Christian. They should hang their head in shame that they should ever ask a question: “If I love the Lord like that, if I obey the Lord like that, do everything He says in the scriptures, what will other people think?” Dear me, I don’t believe such people have even the slightest bit of love for Christ. Zero. They are thinking of their own convenience. They want to believe in Christ because they want to go to heaven. That’s all.

Rejecting Shallow Christianity

I want to tell you, that is not the Christianity the Bible teaches. I never tell people, “Do you want to go to heaven? Believe in Jesus Christ.” And I want to say to any of you who are sitting here, if you receive Christ because you want to go to heaven, I would, I’ll tell you what to do. Go home, fast, and pray for one day and hang your head in shame and say, “Lord, I’m ashamed of myself that after all that You suffered on the cross for me, all I’m thinking of is going to heaven when I die. I can take it easy, relax, and if I sin, it doesn’t matter because He’ll always forgive me.” If you can sin lightly and think that, “Oh, I just got to ask the Lord, ‘Please forgive me. You died for me on the cross, forgive me,’” and you live this endless cycle of committing the same sin—it’s not some different sin, the same sin again and again and again, backsliding, going away from love for the Lord, and taking it lightly. “Oh, I can always come back.” What if the Lord said to you, “If you backslide, you’ll go to hell immediately”? Oh, we’d be pretty careful then.

A Call for Passionate Love for Christ

I feel there’s so much of shallow Christianity, even among many who come to good churches which preach the new birth. I believe the Lord wants to raise in our midst Christians who are passionately in love with Jesus Christ, for whom nothing on earth is as important as Christ Himself, and who are willing to pay any price, sacrifice anything, sacrifice loved ones, sacrifice money, sacrifice anything because they have seen on the cross how much Jesus loved them. And that is why I say to you, “We love Him because He first loved us.” And it’s on the cross that we see how much He loved us. And that is why I keep on telling people to meditate on the cross.

The Urgency to Remember

Now, you heard that message. In one week, you’ll forget it. I’ll tell you that because it’s like that. The devil doesn’t want you to think about these things too much. I guarantee, in one week, you’ll forget it, unless you are gripped in your own life, the Holy Spirit making it real to you. So, that is why I ask you, my dear brothers, please ask the Holy Spirit to make the love of Christ really something that you’re gripped by because that’s the only way we can love Him. And that is the first commandment: “Love the Lord your God with all your heart and all your strength.”

Examples of Christ’s Love: The Canaanite Woman

I want to just show you some examples of His love. Turn with me to one example of Matthew chapter 15. In Matthew 15, we read of Jesus having spoken to some people. I think He was near the Sea of Galilee. And then, it says there in verse 21, a simple statement: “Jesus went away from there and withdrew into the district of Tyre and Sidon.” And you know the story, a Canaanite woman came and said to Him, “My daughter is demon-possessed. Would you please come and have mercy on and heal her?” And He never said a word to her, verse 23. And He said, “I’m only come to the lost sheep of Israel.” But she said, “Lord, help me.” And then, He said, “I can’t give the children’s bread to the dog.” You think He’s acting very rudely to her. He was testing her faith. That’s all. And when she said, “Oh Lord, even if I’m a dog, can I eat the crumbs from the table?” verse 27. Then Jesus said, “The reason Jesus led the conversation that way is to teach His disciples something.” “Look at the persistence of this woman.” And He said, “Oh woman, your faith is great.” There were only a couple of times that Jesus said, “Your faith is great.” And both cases, it was not a Jew. One was the Roman centurion who said, “Lord, you don’t have to come to my house. You’ll stand here, and twenty miles away, my house, my servant will be delivered from the demon.” And the other is this place: “Woman, great is your faith,” again, a non-Israelite Jew, someone who never read the Bible. “Oh woman, great is your faith,” that persistence that she had. “Okay, you call me a dog, that’s fine. I will never feel insulted, Lord, by what you call me. I, I know I may be only like a dog, but can I get a crumb from your table? That crumb will take care of the demon in my daughter.”

Lessons from Jesus’ Journey

And then we read in verse 29, “Jesus departed from there and went back to Capernaum.” Now, when I read something like that, you know what I do? I turn to the back of my Bible and look at the map and see, if you’re serious about studying the Bible, that these are the things that will bless you. And I go there, and I find that the distance from Capernaum, it says here in verse 21, Tyre and Sidon is about thirty, forty miles, depends on which part of the coast He reached, maybe fifty miles. Say, let’s say, even of thirty-five miles up and down, He went, just helped one woman. That’s all He did and walked another thirty-five miles back. Now, ask yourself, how long does it take to walk seventy miles to help one person? How many of you would do it? If you knew there was one needy person who just needed a demon cast out of a daughter, would you walk seventy miles to help that person? These are the things I get when I meditate on scripture. It takes a little effort, but it’ll change your life. It’ll give you a better understanding of what Jesus is like. And it’ll make you realize how little we love Him, or how little we say we love people and we want to help them. We want to give the gospel to others. We’re so passionate about giving the gospel. Here is an example that challenges me all the time when I read this. And that, also, not a Jewish person, someone who is a complete stranger.

Sensitivity to the Holy Spirit

And the other thing I learned here is, how did Jesus know that there was a lady like this over here, over there? Remember, Jesus lived on earth exactly like us? He was prompted by the Holy Spirit. He lived always listening. His mind was so clear because it was so free from sin. And that’s why it’s important to be free from sin because then only we can be sensitive to the Holy Spirit saying, “Do this. Write this note to that person. Call up this person.” If you’re not sensitive to the Holy Spirit, there could be numerous things that the Lord wants us to do to help others which we never do. So, He heard this prompting, “Go to Tyre and Sidon.” He doesn’t even know what is there. Remember, He was like us, and He walks there, and there, when He reaches there, this Canaanite woman comes up. That’s the one God sent Jesus to, for that one person, and as soon as it was over, it says in verse 29, He came right back.

The Example of Zacchaeus

I see that at different times, you know, this sensitivity to the voice of the Spirit. He’s walking down the road once, Jesus, and the Holy Spirit says, “Look up. There’s a man sitting on that tree. His name is Zacchaeus. He had never met him before.” In our song, we sing, “What God did for Jesus, He will do for us.” If you are as serious a Christian as you should be and you want to be available to the Lord so that you don’t waste the one earthly life God gave you. That’s often the thing that comes to my mind. I say, “Lord, I have only one earthly life, and so many of those years have already gone by. I don’t want to leave this earth before I accomplish all that You have planned for me to accomplish. Every person I should reach before I leave this earth, I want to reach. I don’t want to miss out even one.”

Overcoming Prejudice Through Love

Then I have to be sensitive to that voice. I have to be willing to give up prejudices and listen to Him and not listen to what other people tell me. And God saw this. There was one tax collector who was a crook, but in his heart, he wanted to change. And God saw that. And so, God sends Jesus to him. There are people like that—crooked, evil people who may have a little desire to change. You could look at somebody like Zacchaeus and say, “Oh, there’s no hope for him.” But the Holy Spirit had hope for him because he had a desire to change. And God could find Jesus to go to that person. Sometimes, we can be so prejudiced against certain types of people or certain people. “Oh, there’s no hope for such people.” If Jesus had kept those prejudices in mind, man, He’d never have gone to Zacchaeus’s house. When we love God, so many of our prejudices He’ll remove from our mind. Some of those people you think there’s no hope for, God has some hope for them. We’ve seen that with numerous non-Christians in the villages in India where Annie and I have gone for twenty-five to fifty years every year, and we’ve seen the result of people who, you think that these people are idol worshippers, and they turn to the Lord, and some of them turn to be servants of God, serving the Lord and become elders in our churches.

The Call to Love God Wholeheartedly

So, I want to encourage you, my brothers and sisters, to love the Lord with all your heart. In order to love the Lord your God, you got to meditate much on the cross, on the price Jesus paid, first of all, just to come to this earth and then to die on the cross, just that you and I might be with Him for eternity. There are many examples like this we see in the Lord. Remember what I said: He asked Peter only one question, “Do you love Me more than everything else?” And I want to say to all of you, my brothers, sisters, that is the question He’s asking you today: “Do you love Me more than everything else? Are you willing to lose everything, give up everything, sacrifice everything because you love Him?” He doesn’t force anyone.

A Life Worth Living

And I’ll tell you this, if you respond to what you’re hearing today, you will thank me at the judgment seat of Christ because you would have lived a worthwhile life. You know, one life on earth. We have only one life. A lot of those major part of that life has gone past already for many of us. Of the days that are left, make sure that you respond to God’s love for you.

Closing Prayer

Let’s bow in prayer. Think for a moment of what the Lord wants from you. “Lord, help me to love You with all my heart. Help me to understand a little more of what it was that You suffered on the cross.” Stop for a moment and think. Cut out everything else from your mind and ask the Lord to reveal to you. It may not happen immediately, but if you’re serious about it, over the next few days, God can do something in your life that can change you for all eternity. Heavenly Father, whatever I could not explain, please explain it to everyone here, so that we shall do what You have told us to do, to love You with all our heart, soul, strength, and mind. We know that You desire the very best for us, and that’s why You have told us that that is the very first thing that we need to do. Please help us, each one. Everyone here, Lord, I don’t want anybody left out. People have taken the trouble to come here to hear Your word. I pray they will hear it. And I pray that everyone here will be touched in some way by You, in a way that their lives will not be the same from today onwards because they’ve seen the love of Jesus for us on the cross. Thank You, Father. We believe Your Holy Spirit has come to earth to explain that to us. Explain it to us more clearly. We pray in Jesus’ name. Amen.