Christmas: the Son of God expressing the love of God to save us from the wrath of God so we could enjoy the presence of God.
God took the record of all your sins-all your sexual failures-that made you a debtor to wrath, and instead of holding them up in front of your face and using them as the warrant to send you to hell, he put them in the palm of his Son’s hand and nailed them to the cross.
God in eternity looked upon me forseeing my faultness, my pride, my sin and said 'I want that man in my family, i will pay for him to be in my family with my son's life. That's Love folks. That is mega off the charts love!!!
If God were not just, there would be no demand for his Son to suffer and die. And if God were not loving, there would be no willingness for his Son to suffer and die. But God is both just and loving. Therefore his love is willing to meet the demands of his justice.
The deepest need that you and I have in weakness and adversity is not quick relief, but the well-grounded confidence that what is happening to us is part of the greatest purpose of God in the universe - the glorification of the grace and power of his Son - the grace and power that bore Him to the cross and kept him there until the work of love was done.
All of history is moving toward one great goal, the white-hot worship of God and his Son among all the peoples of the earth. Missions exists because worship doesn't. Worship is ultimate, not missions, because God is ultimate, not man.... When this age is over, and the countless millions of the redeemed fall on their faces before the throne of God, missions will be no more. It is a temporary necessity. But worship abides forever.
All of history is moving toward one great goal, the white-hot worship of God and His Son among all the peoples of the earth. Missions is not that goal. It is the means. And for that reason it is the second greatest human activity in the world.
The highest act of love is the giving of the best gift, and, if necessary, at the greatest cost, to the least deserving. That's what God did. At the loss of His Son's life to the totally undeserving, God gave the best gift - the display of the glory of Christ who is the image of God.
Feeling loved by God means feeling glad not only that He crushed His Son so that I can be forgiven, but that He's crushing everything that takes away from my praising of the glory of His grace.
The ultimate meaning of true womanhood is this: It is a distinctive calling of God to display the glory of his Son in ways that would not be displayed if there were no womanhood.
Do you feel more loved when God makes much of you or do you feel more loved when God at the cost of His Son allows you to make much of Him?
