The Greatest Love Story Ever Told

The Greatest Love Story Ever Told
Staff Writer

The Greatest Love Story Ever Told Begins In An Idyllic Setting.

Valentine’s Day celebrates human love, but the greatest love story ever told has both a human as well as a divine aspect to it. This wonderful love story between God and man begins in a garden. Garden are traditionally associated with romance. Everything about the Garden of Eden speaks of God’s loving care for man. The garden environment was lush with beautiful and edible vegetation, including a built-in irrigation system. This garden was incomplete until God met man’s need for a companion by creating a perfect partner for him. The couple happily walked through the garden hand in hand with each other and with God. Even when their disobedience broke God’s heart, He kept right on loving them by clothing them and promising to someday send them a Redeemer Who would right their wrongs. God’s endless and unconditional love for man even protected him from self-annihilation by graciously removing the possibility of accessing a tree that would irrevocably confirm man forever in a sinful state. (See Genesis 2:8-25; 3:22-24 ; Jer. 31:3 ; Psa. 139:17). 3:22-24 ; Jer. 31:3 ; Psa. 139:17)

The Greatest Love Story Ever Told Unfolds In An Unlikely Place.

The Love Story fast forwards 2,000 years, landing us under the quiet night sky in the Judean countryside. During those two millennia God had chosen, liberated, and formed a special group of people known as the Hebrews into the nation of Israel. But the people of Israel, like all of Adam’s offspring, had a sin nature that always led them into sin and away from God. Under the firm heel of Roman rule, God’s people once again longed for deliverance. Unknown to most of them, their prayers were being answered on that starlit night as Jesus Christ took on human flesh and blood, entering our world as a baby. Nothing tugs at our heart strings quite like a helpless newborn baby. In the quietness of that holy night God whispered, “I Love You” to the whole human race in the form of one helpless little baby. The darkness of that night was pierced by blinding celestial light, and the silence of that cool spring evening was broken by a resounding angelic love song that reverberated throughout the countryside. Messiah had finally arrived! (See 1 John 4:9) man, and is at the end of a three year mission designed to huge illustration of God’s burning love for sinners.

The Greatest Love Story Ever Told Climaxes On A Lonely Hilltop.

Like all great love stories, there comes a point where the plot thickens, reaches a stage of critical mass, until something just has to give. In this next scene Jesus has become a grown man, and is at the end of a three year mission to validate His deity and Messianic claims. His whole life was one huge illustration of God’s burning love for sinners. With awesome power Jesus altered the forces of nature, and healed every type of mental, emotional, and spiritual disease! Completely blinded by sin and unbelief, most of His contemporaries rejected His claims, and the religious leadership set out to destroy Him and His movement. Under trumped-up charges, they succeeded in intimidating the Roman governor of Judea into defaulting on Jesus’ proven innocence, and secured official sanction to execute Him. As Jesus’ arms were stretched out on that cross, and as He declared with His dying breath, “It is finished!”, God was shouting, “I Love You!” But neither the unholy wrath of man nor the spikes of Imperial Rome could silence God’s love. Three days after dying on the Cross, Jesus rose from the dead! (See Romans 5:8 ; John 19:1-18,30 ; 20:1-9)

The Greatest Love Story Ever Told Culminates With A Celestial Wedding Celebration.

We all enjoy a happy ending and the greatest love story of all time doesn’t disappoint us. In this unique story line, the couple gets engaged, but the Groom goes far away for an unbearably long time. During this interlude the Interloper who ruined His initial relationship with His Beloved is dealt with decisively. As promised, Christ delivered the death blow to Satan at the cross, then later returns to clean up the mess he’d made of the planet. Like a knight in shining armor, Christ sweeps His Bride off her feet and takes Her to Heaven, where He marries Her. There follows a wedding banquet to end all wedding banquets! The Groom then carries His newlywed Bride over the threshold to entrance to their new dwelling place. It’s an absolute jaw-dropper! Imagine a honeymoon suite that makes Donald Trump’s best hotels look like a trash heap by comparison. The story ends with a scene of a happily married couple forever enjoying each other in Paradise Restored. Their new home is located in a spiritually pristine city that’s permeated with the light of God! The city is completely crime free, having no trace of sin or death. It’s irrigated by the Water of Life, and its vegetation abundantly yields healthy produce for all earth’s inhabitants! (See Revelation 19:6-9 ; 21:1-4 ; 21:10-21 ; 21:22-27)