“I was there when the Lord put the heavens in place and stretched the sky over the surface of the sea. I was with Him when He placed the clouds in the sky and created the springs that fill the ocean. I was there when He set boundaries for the sea to make it obey Him, and when He laid foundations to support the earth. I was right beside the Lord, helping Him plan and build. I made Him happy each day, and I was happy at His side. I was pleased with His world and pleased with its people.” Proverbs 8:27-31 (CEV).
Jesus’ love for us
When Jesus was in this glorious place, in heaven, He saw the evil on earth just getting worse and worse after the fall (where man first sinned in the Garden of Eden), and He felt a great need in His heart: “If only I could go and help these people!” In the midst of His joy and happiness and glory, He had this love for people. He wanted to become their Saviour and show them the way to God. This was His longing.
Isn’t that love, that even when He had it so good, He chose to be born into the world with a human nature like ours? By saying No to all the sinful temptations that came up from His own human nature, He opened a way back to God and His kingdom; a way to share all His glory with us.
Isn’t that love? Living every day of His life here on earth without giving in to sin even once? Every day He was in real danger of giving in to temptation and losing what He had left behind in heaven. That is the love Jesus has for you and me!
When we understand the love Jesus has for us, shouldn’t it be natural for us to always want to love Him in return? But strange enough, this is not how it is. Therefore, Jesus says, “Listen to Me now, My children! Blessed are they who follow My ways.” You would have thought that everyone would want to follow these ways. But we are made so corrupt by sin that we aren’t like that. That’s why we need to hear these words. That’s why we need to keep watch at the doors of our hearts, and really have a longing to live close to Him and hear His voice.
He saw my unhappiness and suffering
Christmas is a time to think about why Jesus came. Think of the love that was behind His coming! He is my Saviour! He loves me.
He saw my unhappiness and suffering, not only the suffering of mankind in general. No, mine too. He saw how easily I am tempted to sin, how little it takes before I come out of love.
When a child is born, we are very happy because it is a new life. But the baby also has a fallen human nature – the human nature we got after the fall of the first man in the Garden of Eden, and in which nature nothing good lives. That’s why people easily grow up to be selfish and bad, and just want glory and greatness for themselves. All the evil that has happened in the world has happened through human bodies that were created to be like the Father Himself, but Satan took control of their nature through lusts and desires and the spirit of the times.
Stay in a burning love
“[I pray] that He would grant you, according to the riches of His glory, to be strengthened with might through His Spirit in the inner man, that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith; that you, being rooted and grounded in love, may be able to comprehend with all the saints what is the width and length and depth and height – to know the love of Christ which passes knowledge; that you may be filled with all the fullness of God.” Ephesians 3:16-19.
When Paul speaks about being “rooted and grounded in love”, this means first of all that we also have a burning love for Christ in return. We cannot be faithful our whole lives without growing tired or coming out of love if we do not have this burning love for Jesus. Then we can go through life without getting tired in our spirit because of difficult circumstances or how other people are.
If we are getting “tired” then something cold comes in and we don’t care anymore, and our love for the others and for God cools down. The intention is that we must always stay in this burning love and that it should grow.
David says, “I will love You, O Lord, my strength.” Psalm 18:1. How long has it been since you have said this to Jesus? Even if we are busy with many things, Paul says we are called to have fellowship with Him, the Son of God. This loving relationship gives us strength to hold out in our battles, and we can be full of joy before the Lord. Our joy will never disappear if we keep ourselves in this love.