12/26/2022
Who made you feel loved this year, and how did they do it?
I’m willing to guess the last time you felt loved, it didn’t have anything to do with Netflix-like-romance. The world has taught us wrongly about what love looks like in action. We’ve been taught that love lights candles and wears lingerie. But I’m guessing your example was probably closer to something someone did that made you feel seen, known. Someone who loves well shows you that you are valued even when it costs them something to do it.
The whole Christmas story happened at a personal cost to God that went far beyond what you or I have ever done for someone else. God signed himself up for a painful sacrifice, and he did it waaaaaaaay before Jesus was actually born. He knew we were in trouble and separated from the eternal life of God because of our sin. And He knew we couldn’t help ourselves. The fix was going to be painful for God, and He chose it anyway. We can be sure He knew exactly what he was choosing because of scriptures like this written about the Messiah to come over 700 years before Jesus was born.
He was despised and rejected by mankind,
a man of suffering and familiar with pain.
Like one from whom people hide their faces
he was despised, and we held him in low esteem.
Surely he took up our pain
and bore our suffering,
yet we considered him punished by God,
stricken by him, and afflicted.
But he was pierced for our transgressions,
he was crushed for our iniquities;
the punishment that brought us peace was on him,
and by his wounds, we are healed.
Isaiah 53:3-5
God planned the first Christmas at the very foundations of the world. He knew it would cost him terribly, but he had a much bigger objective than Himself. His objective was to make sure you and I understood that we are seen, known, and wanted in the family of God.
God made the first move to say, “I love you.” He saw what we needed, and he did it even though it hurt him. This is the very definition of love—valuing another so much that we are willing to cost ourselves something to communicate that value.
This is love: not that we loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son as an atoning sacrifice for our sins. 1 John 4:10
God willingly sent Jesus that first Christmas, and it hurt him to do it. It was the greatest act of love our world has ever seen. And it was for you.
This week, let’s pray a prayer straight from Ephesians 3. It’s a prayer asking that we’d really be able to understand and receive the unbelievable love of the God of Christmas:
Father,
Help me to become rooted and established in your love. Please give me the power, together with all your people, to grasp how wide and long and high and deep is the love of Christ, and to know this love that surpasses knowledge—that we may be filled to the measure of all your fullness.
Amen.
