We spend so many days of our lives looking for affirmations and love. In realty, there is only one love we should want above and beyond and any love. It is a love we already have. It is the love of Christ.  Yes, I know that sounds simple.

The truth is simple. Jesus loves you.

Jesus did not whisper he loves you over a candle-lit dinner. He did not tell you he loves you in a penthouse suite. He did not send a card and flowers from heaven. He did not write you a poem in the clouds. He came down to be crucified.He says that he loves you as your sin hammers nails through his hands and hangs him up on a cross. He did not simply say that he loved you, he died to display that he loved you in the most powerful way imaginable:

‘God shows his love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us’  Romans 5:8

So how can you know that Jesus really loves you? How can you really believe that his love will not leave like others who abandoned you?

The Savior built an everlasting memorial of love in his death atop a hill. From these heights, he proved his trustworthiness.

“I Thirst,” a meditation attributed to St. Teresa of Calcutta in which Jesus speaks to the human heart, includes these powerful words:

I thirst for You. Yes, that is the only way to begin to describe my love for you… I thirst to love you and to be loved by you — that is how precious you are to Me. I thirst for you. Come to Me, and I will fill your heart and heal your wounds. I will make you a new creation, and give you peace, even in all your trials I thirst for you. You must never doubt my mercy, my acceptance of you, my desire to forgive, my longing to bless you and live my life in you… If you feel unimportant in the eyes of the world, that matters not at all. For Me, there is no one any more important in the entire world than you.

We lay people are so burdened by the assaults of our post-Christian society and the culture of death,  we are so weighed down by the trials and daily grind of life.

We not hear or understand God’s love. What keeps us from letting His thirsting love penetrate our innermost selves? It is our desire of this world’s definition of love.

Today and this week. Let His love penetrate your being.