“He laid down His life for us” – 1 John 3:16

Pause at the remembrance of thy convictions; think of thy conversion; recollect thy preservation, and how God’s grace hath been working upon thee, in adoption, in justification, and in every item of the new covenant; and when thou hast summed up all these things, let me ask thee this question: Do all these things produce in thee such a sense of gratitude as the one thing that I shall mention now, the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ? For, my brother, if thy mind is like mine, although thou wilt think highly enough of all these things that God hath given thee, thou wilt be obliged to confess that the thought of the death of Christ upon the cross swallows them all up. This I know, my brethren, I may look back, I may look forward, but whether I look back to the decrees of eternity, or look forward to the pearl-gated city, and all the splendours that God has prepared for His own beloved children, I can never see my Father’s love so beaming forth, in all its effulgence, as when I look at the cross of Christ, and see Him die thereon. I can read the love of God in the rocky letters of the eternal covenant, and in the blazing letters of heaven hereafter; but, my brethren, in those crimson lines, those lines written in blood, there is something more striking than there is anywhere else, for they say, “He laid down His life for us” Ah, here it is ye learn love. You know the old story of Damon and Pythias, how the two friends struggled together as to which should die for the other; there was love there. But, ah! there is no comparison between Damon and Pythias, and a poor sinner and his Saviour. Christ laid down His life, His glorious life, for a poor worm; He stripped Himself of all His splendours, then of all His happiness, then of His own righteousness, then of His own robes, till He was naked to His own shame; and then He laid down His life, that was all He had left, for our Saviour had not kept anything back.~ C.H. Spurgeon

https://www.blueletterbible.org/Comm/spurgeon_charles/sermons/2656.cfm