What are you willing to die for?

"Greater love has no one than this, that he lay down his life for his friends." John 15:13

There are many things we love. Some people love cars. They know everything about them. Some people love sports. They can quote statistics like a walking dictionary. Some people love food. They know where the best restaurants are and the best food around. And then, there are those who are in love. They spend most of their free time with the people they love.

All the different people listed above have one thing in common: they all love something or somebody. You can even say their lives revolve around that thing/person. But when you love somebody, you can do something extra which is to die for the person.

In today's world, not many people are willing to lay their lives down for anything. We value life so much that we are not willing to make this final sacrifice. But for those who do, what do they lay their lives down for?

Usually, it's someone close to their heart. Maybe it's your spouse. You would rather have died instead of them dying. Maybe it's your family. Parent, siblings who get into trouble and you are willing to do anything to help them, even your life. It's common.

For others, it may be for a cause someone is championing. We believe that someone is doing something very right, we are willing to die so that they may live on and carry on the good fight. These people are willing die for the righteoness.

Still a few are willing to lay their lives down for a friend. Mostly, I see this in Chinese gangsters in movies but hey, it's still possible in reality. We like our friends and we believe that they are right so we are willing to sacrifice ourselves for them.

In all cases, the sacrifice is made due to a love for the person/cause. But what about a stranger? Someone we do not know, are we willing to die for them? Maybe, some of you anwer. Depending on whether we judge them to be worth saving by trading our lives. Heroes do that. They are willing to lay their lives down for the greater good so that others may live.

But what about our enemies? When was the last time we heard or see someone dying for someone else who they've hated their whole life? We don't even see movies which end with the hero dying so that his enemy can live.

Or how about prisoners? People whom we have already decided are sinners and are worthy to be punished. Unknown faces who we all know deserve that they got. Murderers, rapists, thieves. Is there anyone willing to die for them so that they may live?

Even more personally, a murderer/rapist/thief who has done something bad towards you. Would you be willing to say, "I know he/she has down something bad towards me that's worth them dying but please, take me instead."

We know people love us by how much they are willing to sacrifice for us. People who are willing to lay their lives down for us are people who truly and deeply love us. By that definition, I know understand just how great Christ's love for me truly is. For in God's courtroom, we are all sinners and are sentenced to death. In other words, we are all sitting on the death row now. But Christ has intervene by dying for us on the cross 2000 years ago so that we may live on.

His death wasn't a quick one either. The movie "The Passion of Christ" depicts quite accurately the brutality that He went through for our sake. We who deserve every bit of the whipping and the crown of thorns do not have to go through it because our Lord and Saviour has taken it for us. In fact, not only did He died for us, He went to the cross for the very people who put Him there in the first place! The pharisees, Jews and Roman soldiers who presecuted Him and did the whipping and nailing Him to the cross, He died for all of them too!

Such is His love for all of us on this Earth, I relate it as seeing all this people who He knows is sitting on the death row in Heaven and because of that, He chose to endure the cross for our sake. He saw nations going to hell and He decided to die, so that there is now a way to skip hell and go to Heaven. It's like if we were to go to all the prisons in the world, and say to all the wardens, "Count the number of death row prisoners you have and kill me, so that they may live on."

Now, I realize what the Bible meant when it is written in John 3:16 - "For God so loved the world, that He gave His one and only son..."One son, one person and He chose to die, so that we all may live and have a relationship with God. Is there any greater love?