God Loves You So Much!

The Christmas tree looks empty with all the presents gone and many of you have probably taken down your trees and packed the decorations away. I want to enjoy the lights a little longer so ours remains up. When all the presents are gone, they have been opened by the recipient. The gifts have been given. The joy has been shared.  The light has been spread. The anticipation is over but there is still much to learn about the gift: all the ways to use it, how to make it work, and what it can do. The gift owners are still discovering more about the gift.

That is what the world is doing following the arrival of the baby king. It is time to explore and learn again about all that Jesus can do as He grows into a man on earth. There is more to understand about this gift that has been given for us to follow and imitate. There is more to realize about how personally this gift was selected and crafted for us, of how perfectly this gift meets our every need. There is a relationship to develop and build and grow with Jesus our Savior.

This gift of baby Jesus, the human form of God, was given with such love for us. The gift was a rescue rope stretched out to reach us on the rocky cliff and pull us safely closer to Him where we could feel His heartbeat, His loving arms, and hear His whisper in our ears. This gift was God-man: all divine and all human, perfection in a physical being, One of a kind, uniquely Holy, yet visible and touchable.

"For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life. For God did not sent his Son into the world to condemn the world, but to save the world through him. Whoever believes in him is not condemned already because he has not believed in the name of God's one and only Son. This is the verdict: Light has come into the world, but men loved darkness instead of light because their deeds were evil. Everyone who does evil hates the light, and will not come into the light for fear that his deeds will be exposed. But whoever lives by the truth comes into the light, so that it may be seen plainly that what he has done has been done through God" (John 3:16-21 NIV).

What a gift we have been given! May we cherish this gift of Jesus every moment of every day of our lives. For Jesus is the gift of the greatest love ever expressed.