The best Christmas gift of all is that Jesus first loved us. Reflect on these awesome truths this special day and Merry Christmas!
The best Christmas gift of all is that Jesus first loved us. Reflect on these awesome truths this special day and Merry Christmas!
You can give the Perfect Gift this Christmas!
Merry Christmas friend! I’m Joni Eareckson Tada sharing hope.
It is Christmas day, oh, a joy-filled wonderful day celebrating Christ coming into our world. For me and Ken, it’ll be a relaxing afternoon [we opened presents last night; we do that on Christmas Eve], and today we will spend the time recounting the blessings God has given us this year. I made it through two bouts of double pneumonia. But even that will be surpassed by the biggest blessing of all, the one we celebrate today. Jesus Christ came from outside the world and descended into our world to save us. Preeminently and supremely, this is what makes Christmas so wonderful.
1 Timothy 1 says that Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners. Oh, my goodness, what a rescue! There was no way we deserved such mercy. Colossians 1 says that we were alienated from God and enemies in our minds against him because of our evil behavior. Yep, Colossians is talking about us, us dog nasty sinners. But today we celebrate the glorious, merciful Son of God, begotten of the Father before all-time, he descended from the beauty of heaven and dived right into our brokenness. Just think on that for a minute. At one time, just what, a little over 2000 years ago, the son of God had no body. He was not a human being. He was only God. He wasn’t a man; he was the Word, and he was with God and the Word was God. But then – oh, but then – then, there was Christmas. There was the holy Advent when the Word became flesh. The Word came from the outside and into a stable in Bethlehem.
And in that manger, there the baby Jesus lay. Now he was not God only, but also a human being. In that tiny infant, there were mysteriously two natures. One divine and one human. Because another central truth of Christmas is shared in Colossians: "In him, the whole fullness of deity dwells in bodily form." And from that first night in Bethlehem onward, he would never cease to be both man and God. [And even now, Jesus whom we celebrate, is in heaven as both God and man, a glorified man who yes, this minute, is interceding and celebrating with us, his purchased ones]. Oh, oh, what a sacrifice was made by the eternal Son of God. To lay aside his divine robes of state so that he could put on the great indignity of human birth. And not just the indignity of being knit together in the womb of Mary, a human being, but becoming flesh-and-blood in a wicked world that would reject him from the start and eventually, this child both divine and human would put on the ultimate indignity – and carry his own cross, pleading for us, and rescuing and purchasing us a home with him in heaven! And it’s why this Christmas, we celebrate our Jesus, our precious Jesus, oh how we love our Savior. 1 John 4:19 says it best. We love him, we celebrate him today, why? Because he first loved us. He rescued us. Wow!
It is indeed the best Christmas gift of all, that he first loved us. So, join Ken Tada and me in reflecting on these wondrous, mysterious, awesome truths this special day. And from the radio team here and from everyone at Joni and Friends – the Wheels for the World Team, Family Retreat Team, Merry Christmas! All of us celebrate with you the glorious birth of Jesus Christ.
© Joni and Friends