"I have told you this so that my joy may be in you and that your joy may be complete" (John 15:11 NIV; italics mine).Stop! Do not read any further. Close your eyes for a moment. This is the season when most, not all, are joyful. Keep your eyes closed, do not think upon the season, the family gathering, the opening of presents; and the joy of being with friends. Can you see it? The stable where mom and dad are sitting next to a manger where lies a newborn baby? Here lies not just a baby but God the Son, proof that when we say God loves us, He does. There lays a promise kept, a promise made thousands of years ago, back in the Garden of Eden, as told to Adam and Eve. Look at the two proud parents, smiling over the joy of a newborn baby and the joy that for the moment they share together, the Son of God is here. Open your eyes, look up, your joy is here!
He has come! The God who made the world, the all-consuming fire, and the great I AM, taking the form of man to become the savior for all. God the jealous Father with love for His children. How can this be? There are no words to tell you. He made us not to love Him, although we do, but so that He can love us, we are the objects of His love. Being the object of His love He is not content to allow us to go our own way and we should never ask to do so for that would be an affront to God. God is a God of love and He cannot do anything other than what He is. We cannot make our selves more lovable, He already loves us, and He labors to make us lovable. He has come to reconcile us to Him through His Son a Son full of joy and He gives that joy to us. Will we receive it?
This baby we pictured in our minds, we are about to celebrate that birth, but do not leave Him there in the manger. He is Son of Man and Son of God and He is full of joy that He wishes to give to us. Not happiness as in our use of the word; real joy. What was the joy of Jesus? It was complete and absolute surrender to His Father. The joy doing that for which the Father had sent Him to do, a life of self-sacrifice. This is His prayer just before He was arrested, "I am coming to you now, but I say these things while I am still in the world, so that they may have the full measure of my joy within them" (John 17:13 NIV; italics mine). This is the question for us all; have we allowed Jesus Christ to fill us with His joy?
The joy he will give us, not to be healthy, not in external things, and even not in seeing God's work succeed. While we want those things and He is willing to provide, rather, it is the joy of an understanding of God and His Son. Having communion as Jesus had with the Father. We can hinder this joy by our constant thinking about our circumstances. Allowing the cares of the world to overtake us that will squeeze out our joy. Think upon this, all that God has done for us. He came to a manger, lived among us under the rules of this world, His creation, and then placing Himself upon the cross, all because He loves us. What a God! What Love!
The joy found in a right relationship with the Father allowing Him to flow from us "Living Waters." Prepare now when our joy because of the season is high, to be the "Living Waters" for all with whom we know and come into contact. May the "Living Waters" flow freely starting right now and keep on flowing until our work is over. The baby has come, He has risen, he now is at the right hand of the Father willing and ready to fill us with His joy. Receive it, immerse your self in it, and give it to others. Let us celebrate with joy this Christmas season and may joy fill your heart.
Daily Prayer:
Father I commit my life to you. Fill me with your Holy Spirit and may your joy be so overflowing that it becomes "Living Waters" flowing out to other that they too will come to know you and your Son Jesus Christ. Grow my faith as I surrender all to you. Thank you for coming and more than that thank you for the hope of everlasting life. Amen.
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"He made us not to love Him, although we do, but so that He can love us, we . . ."
ReplyDeleteBe careful that your theology doesn't get lost in feeling but reflects the broader reality we see. We get tripped up when we try to same more than is there and from a fear that if we speak in a broader way we will undermine what we have. The very nature of love requires a return in kind, that we love back. We may live without that return but in doing so this does not deny the nature of love. That God loves us even when we don't love him is not the same as saying he expects, even demands, that we love him in return. He does.
There is nothing wrong in saying God created us not just as "something" to love, but he created us to love him in return, does not limit him or redefine him as something less than a perfect divine. If this presents itself as a "need" by which now God is limited we are stepping outside our limited ability to really know. Need does not define anyone down. To do so finds us falling into the trap of only the true spiritual being is divine, anything less than pure (the absence of needs) makes us baser creatures and we need to purge that baseness.
When we think of God "needing" we are trying to define "need" from human experience and that can only give us an inkling, not a finished definition. That He gave part of himself to be part of our world so we could become part of His world does not cheapen this love and action if we understand he did so out of his need, and leave it at that knowing that to take it further will cheapen that act, but it will be from our failed understanding, not his.