المجلة
One way we show how much others mean to us is by the value of the gifts we give them.
Birthdays, anniversaries, special days, and especially Christmas are avenues through which we express our love with gifts. The more we cherish a person, the more we want to express their value to us through joyfully giving to them something precious to us that we hope they will enjoy and treasure.
What is true on the human level is even more true with regard to God and His love for mankind. We know from Genesis 1 that human beings have a special place in God’s heart – of all creatures, only we have been created in the image and likeness of God. Yet even after our sins have marred His image with moral and spiritual ugliness and led to our just and eternal condemnation, God still loves us. Indeed, He loves us so much that He set in motion His plan to rescue us from our doom.
At Christmas we are reminded in a remarkable way how much we mean to God. Even in our brokenness and degradation, God’s unfathomable love moves to restore us, to forgive and cleanse us, but even more to raise our status from creatures made in His image and likeness to precious children of God.
The gift of divine love which made this possible was what we know as the Incarnation – the condescension of God the Son to leave His position of heavenly glory in order to clothe Himself in lowly humanity. The Word became flesh and dwelt among us, as John 1:14 tells us. According to the promise of Isaiah quoted by an angel to Mary’s husband Joseph, the title by which the Word would be known was “Immanuel”, Hebrew for “God with us.” But according to the same angel, the name which Joseph should christen this special baby with was, of course, Jesus, which in Hebrew means “God saves.” Why? Because, as the angel observed, “he will save his people from their sins” (Mt. 1:21).
How much do human beings mean to God? So much that God the Son was willing to leave behind His glory to involve Himself with lost and sinful humans on their level. As John 3:16 announces, God the Father loved His human creatures to such a degree that He was willing to part with His only-begotten Son so that those giving Him their allegiance would not face condemnation but enjoy eternal life.
But the fullness of God’s love is seen not just in the sacrifice of His glory in stepping down from the Throne to become a human. It is found most astoundingly in the self-offering sacrifice of the incarnate Son on the cross for the sins of the world. Out of love, Jesus gave up his human life to bear judgment that humanity deserved. His blood shed for the guilty sets free all who accept his substitutionary act on their behalf and become members of the family of God, or as Paul phrased it in Acts 20:28, “the church of the Lord which He obtained with His own blood.”
How much does God love you? At that first Christmas, He launched His incarnation, all for the purpose of shedding His human blood for your salvation. As Jesus would later teach, no one has greater love than the one willing to lay down his life for his friends (John 15:13). From the beginning of his public ministry, Jesus was clear that the goal of his earthly work was the cross. As he sat in Jerusalem after his “triumphal entry” on Palm Sunday, Jesus contemplated the horror that still lay before him: “Now my soul is troubled. And what shall I say? ‘Father, save me from this hour’? No, for this purpose I have come to this hour. Father, glorify Your Name” (John 12:27-28). From the very beginning, the Incarnate Son of God was committed to shedding His blood for your salvation. That is how much God loves you. To God, you are worth the lifeblood of His Son, the One most precious to Him in all the universe.
“By this we know love, that he [Jesus] laid down his life for us” (1 John 3:16). So the “beloved disciple,” John, summarized the message of the gospel. Or again, “In this the love of God was made manifest among us, that God sent His only Son into the world, so that we might live through Him. In this is love, not that we loved God but that He love us and sent His Son to be the expiation for our sins” (1 John 4:9-10). Or perhaps most powerfully, “See what love the Father has given us, that we should be called children of God; and so we are!” (1 John 3:1).
In this Christmas season, as you are contemplating what gifts to shower on your loved ones to express your deep love for them, take some time to ponder the infinite depth of God’s love for you. As Paul wrote to the Roman believers, “He who did not spare His own Son but gave Him up for us all, will He not also give us all things with Him?” (Romans 8:32). God gave you the greatest gift He could muster – that’s how much you are worth to Him. Let yourself bathe in His love and affirmation, and let your heart respond in kind! Merry Christmas, indeed!
