Because He Loves Us

The love of God is too big, too magnificent to ever comprehend, but when God peels back the curtain to reveal a fraction of what it looks like, it’s understandably breathtaking.

I can’t get over the fact that God always loves, when He has never been loved adequately by humanity…. by me. I suppose I’m revealing something about my own “stuff” in that statement, but that’s ok. Clearly the passage in 1 Corinthians 13 teaches that the only way we will love well, is when the Spirit loves through us. Genuine expressions of love will always be attributed to God alive in humans….never to humans apart from Him.

It’s interesting in that light, to think about God becoming flesh. He demonstrated what it looks like to face the human experience, and respond to it sinlessly. He loved perfectly. He fulfilled all that He was sent to accomplish and He did it by abdicating His power and submitting to His Father……just like He asks me to do.

I’m trying to undo a lifetime of visual and emotional attachments to The Christmas Story and the Christmas Season in general. That’s impossible, I suppose, but I wish I could. I’d like a shot at “getting” a glimpse of God incarnate, and being appropriately bowled-over. I’d like to be consumed by the recounting of a Father’s love so vast, so unquenchable as to defy reason to demonstrate it.

A shadow of the mystery of God’s love is revealed through parenthood. Most parents have an innate devotion to their children so that there is nothing we would not do for them. Most of the time it has no bearing on their behavior or attitude or even their regard for us. They are our children and we love them. Period. That is likely the closest we can come to understanding why God loves and continues to love.

As you maneuver the next few days, whatever that looks like for you and your people, I pray you might open yourself up to a new view of an ancient event. Emmanuel, whose coming (and subsequent death and resurrection) is unarguably the most radical manifestation of love that has ever been known, was, is and will forever be alive and well. The Babe in a manger is one in a long sequence of events fulfilling the desire of Creator God to reconcile humanity to Himself…..

….because He loves us.

I pray you will allow the love of Emmanuel to enter your heart and speak peace and joy to your soul, and in turn pass it on to those in your path.

~ Merry Christmas