Last January, flash floods hammered Australia. Many people lost their lives. One was a 13-year-old boy named Jordan Rice. Jordan, his mother, and 10-year-old brother Blake were trapped in their car as the water rose. Jordan’s dad recounted how “all these people were just standing around until an old scrawny guy grabbed a bit of rope, wrapped it around himself and jumped in.”

He reached the car and grabbed the 13-year-old, but Jordan, who could not swim, insisted, “Save my brother first.” The man pulled Blake out, but before he could return, the car flipped, drowning Jordan and his mom.

We’re profoundly moved by selfless acts, a person abandoning himself for the good of another. This self-abandonment is precisely what Jesus did in order to rescue humanity from the ravages of sin and the grip of death.

The deepest human problem is not our inability to get along with one another or our penchant for destroying whatever we touch (our society, our environment, you name it). Our deepest dilemma is that we have run from God. Because of love, however, God came after us. He set out to bring us “back to Himself through Christ” (2 Corinthians 5:18). God came to us in Jesus and began the long work of “reconciling the world to Himself” (2 Corinthians 5:19).

But this reconciliation cost Jesus everything. Jesus surrendered Himself, abandoned His own well-being, and entered the fray of our sinfulness. In Jesus, God took on our chains so that we could be free. Jesus willingly took on death “so that we could be made right with God” (2 Corinthians 5:21).

God’s love does not come cheaply. The cost for God to love is high indeed. Rather than saving Himself, Jesus intended to save us. And when Jesus died, He did just that.

NLT 365-day reading plan passage for today: Romans 5:1-11