A Montage of Love

John 3:16, ‘For God so loved the world that He gave His one and only Son, that whoever believes in Him shall not perish but have eternal life.’ The birth of Jesus was a love gift – a sacrifice made by God for the world, (that is you and me) that He loves with immeasurable and incomprehensible love. To fully understand this, we need to go back to the beginning, to the genesis of all things. John 1:1-4, ‘In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was with God in the beginning. Through him all things were made; without him nothing was made that has been made. In him was life, and that life was the light of men.’ You see God is the beginning of all things and in all things He has set laws to govern. Because He is a just God, He will not break even one of His laws that He has set. The first man Adam sinned and as a consequence his nature became sinful which we have inherited as his descendants. The consequence of man’s sinful nature was death and eternal separation from God. Now even though God loved man with an unfathomable love and longed to have a loving relationship with him, sin separated man and God because of God’s Holiness. To ensure that man did not perish and to fulfil the requirement of the law of sin He gave up Jesus, His only begotten Son – a sinless man (and fully God), as an atonement for sin who died in place of me and you – sinners who deserved to die. Now all this seems like a lofty dream of a misguided religious zealot and am sure some of you are ready to set me straight. Let us for a minute assume it was true then what is the main theme for Christianity? All through when you read the bible, the message that resonates through the pages, the books, chapters, verses and words is love. God’s abounding love for man and the need for man to live a life of love to fellow man. John 1:10-13, ‘He was in the world, and though the world was made through him, the world did not recognize him. He came to that which was his own, but his own did not receive him. Yet to all who received him, to those who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God – children born not of natural descent, nor of human decision or a husband's will, but born of God.’ But the reality is that God is and that when you come near Him He will come near to you. He has given you free will and will not force you to be in a relationship with Him that you do not want to. The truth is there for all to see, Romans 1:20, ‘For since the creation of the world God's invisible qualities--his eternal power and divine nature – have been clearly seen, being understood from what has been made, so that men are without excuse.’ Now God is love and He has given us the great example of what love is, not that we loved Him first but that He loved us even when we were still His enemies. Jesus came not to condemn but to give life John 3:17, ‘For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but to save the world through him.’ Let us therefore as we celebrate this Christmas holiday, let us reflect and think, not only on the things that we shall receive or give, but also on Christ, why He left His divinity to come and live as a man on earth and why He died on the cross and resurrected on the third day. Let us reflect on His beautiful montage of love.