Friday, December 6, 2024
God so loved the world, that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him shall not perish, but have eternal life. John 3:16
Because God So Loved The World
In this simple salvation passage we can find the Christmas story. John 3:16 gives the total picture of the meaning and purpose of Christmas. In this passage we discover the motive, action and purpose of the beautiful gift of Christ. Christmas and Easter are one act of God - It is called redemption.
While the focus of Christmas is the tiny baby wrapped in swaddling clothes, the person behind the manger is God. John 1:1 describes Christmas from the vantage point of eternity and identifies the child as God incarnate: In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.
The Person of Christmas - God...
It is God who presides over and orchestrates the event that we call Christmas and takes it all the way to Easter. Herein for every simple heart is the very essence of the gospel. This text tells us certain very great things: It tells us that the origin and initiative in all salvation lies with God. God’s creation of man was for fellowship. Man sinned and separated himself from God for God is Holy. God takes the initiative to restore access for fellowship and power. It tells us that it all started with God. It was God who sent His Son, and He sent His Son because He loved men. Behind everything there is God.
The Spirit of Christmas - so loved...
What would cause an all-powerful God to act as He did? The answer is LOVE. The spirit of Christmas is Love. John said it well in I John 4:16 & 19 - And we have come to know and have believed the love which God has for us. God is love and the one who abides in love abides in God, and God abides in Him....We love Him, because He first loved US.
Christmas is the display of the heart of God as well as the purpose of God and person of God. How does God prove this love of his? Not by a weak indulgence that passes over what should not be as if it were not there, or which pretends it does not gravely matter even if it is. That was not love at all. But by doing all that even God can do, and giving all that even God can give to help us; stretching even divine self-sacrifice to the uttermost, and holding back nothing all because of LOVE.
The Recipients of Christmas – the world ...
It was His creation, the world, that God so loved. It was not a nation: it was not the good people; it was not only the people who loved Him; it was the lost, sinful, world. The whole world is blessed because God chose to love it. The unlovable and the unlovely, the lonely who have no one else to love them, the man who loves God and the man who never thinks of God, the man who rests in the love of God and the man who spurns the love of God -- all are included in this vast inclusive love of God.
God loves the world; his foolish, blundering, wayward, sin-sick world; and cannot bear to leave it in the troubles and disasters in which it has involved itself; but has thrown in His all, God's all, to right things for it, if it will.
God did not send the Son into the world to judge the world, but that the world might be saved through Him. John 3:17
