Our Daily Bread Christmas: Gift Of Grace / Day 7

Our Daily Bread Christmas: Gift Of Grace

Day 7 of 10 The Main Reason. Jesus corrects my fuzzy conceptions of God. He reveals a God who comes in search of us, a God who makes room for our freedom, and above all a God who is love. Those raised in a Christian tradition may miss the shock of Jesus’s message, but love has never been a normal way of describing what happens between human beings and their gods. Aristotle stated bluntly, “It would be eccentric for anyone to claim that he loved Zeus”—or that Zeus loved a human being for that matter. In contrast, the Christian Bible cites love as the main reason Jesus came to earth: “God showed how much he loved us by sending his one and only Son . . . so that we might have eternal life through him” (1 John 4:9). I remember sitting in an airport waiting for a flight. I was writing the book Disappointment with God at the time, and I felt burdened by other people’s sorrows, doubts, and unanswered prayers. My friend Karen happened to be traveling to the same conference. She listened to me in silence for a long time, and then out of nowhere she asked a question. “Philip, do you ever just let God love you? It’s pretty important, I think.” I realized that I had missed the most important message of the Christian faith. The story of Jesus is a story of love. Yes, it involves pain and disappointment. But Jesus embodies the promise of a God who will go to any length to get his family back. —Philip Yancey Love was when God became a man. Walvoord I John 4:1-9 I John 4:1-9 NKJV 1 Beloved, do not believe every spirit, but test the spirits, whether they are of God; because many false prophets have gone out into the world. 2 By this you know the Spirit of God: Every spirit that confesses that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh is of God, 3 and every spirit that does not confess that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh is not of God. And this is the spirit of the Antichrist, which you have heard was coming, and is now already in the world. 4 You are of God, little children, and have overcome them, because He who is in you is greater than he who is in the world. 5 They are of the world. Therefore they speak as of the world, and the world hears them. 6 We are of God. He who knows God hears us; he who is not of God does not hear us. By this we know the spirit of truth and the spirit of error. Knowing God Through Love 7 Beloved, let us love one another, for love is of God; and everyone who loves is born of God and knows God. 8 He who does not love does not know God, for God is love. 9 In this the love of God was manifested toward us, that God has sent His only begotten Son into the world, that we might live through Him.