Gift Of Love

            Merry Christmas, friends! I hope that you’ve all had a wonderful day filled with joy and laughter. I, for one, can hardly believe that 2012 is almost over. Time has gone by so quickly.

            I have been thinking a lot about the Christmas story over the past few days. And I’ve been struck again by the magnificence of it. It is such an incredible, crazy, awesome, beautiful story. There is none like it on earth.

            God - the almighty Creator of the universe – became flesh. He adopted human form and put himself in the womb of a virgin. He was born in a dirty stable, and placed in a manger to sleep. Men, for the first of many times, sought to end His life when He was only a baby. His life was filled with pain and suffering, yet He never complained. He bore it all with patience and love. He carried our sins up Calvary’s hill and died on a cross.

            But then He rose again. Death could not bind him. His power extended over death, and He rose from the grave victorious. But that’s not even the most amazing part.

            The most amazing thing is… He did it for us.

            For us. The beings He created and loved. The beings that rejected Him, beat Him, drew His blood, mocked Him, spat in His face. The beings who are selfish, cruel, uncaring, unloving, sinful, vulgar, and absolutely unlovable.

            He – who was above all – lowered Himself to the lowest state possible. He humbled Himself to become human, and so doing saved the world. He suffered a cruel and torturous death… and all for us.

            Is this not mind-boggling? That God would love us so fully as to give up His life for us? We, who are so utterly unworthy. I don’t know about you, but I find that humbling.

            God… thank You so much for what You did that day. In becoming a Man, You set us free. The Christmas story is just the beginning of an epic love story. One that You have written for us. Oh God, I am so undeserving of this… all of this. All the gifts that You have given to me. Why? I will never understand why You love me – a worthless sinner. I can never fathom the depths of Your love.

            But this I do know. I know that You love me, despite all my failings, and that You died for me.

            That means so much. Thank You, Lord. I love you.

                                                                                                     ~Riah


"And the Word became flesh, and dwelt among us!"
    -John 1:14      
          What a transition!
          What a stoop for that Infinite Being who proclaimed
Himself the Alpha and the Omega--for "The Ancient
of days" to assume the nature and take the form of
a cradled infant, sleeping on a virgin mother's bosom!
          We have no plumb line to sound the depths of that
humiliation. We have no arithmetic by which it can
be submitted to any process of calculation.      
          If we can entertain for a moment, the shocking
supposition of the loftiest created spirit in Heaven
abjuring his angel nature, and becoming an insect
or a worm--then we can, in some feeble degree,
estimate the descent involved in Jesus' humiliation.

          But, for the Illimitable, Everlasting Jehovah,
Himself to become incarnate . . .
  the Creator--to take the nature of the created;
  the Infinite--to be joined with the finite;
  Deity--to be linked with dust;
this baffles all our comprehension!      
          We can only lie in adoring reverence, and
exclaim with the apostle, "O the depth!"      
"Wonder, O heavens, and be astonished, O earth!"
                                            -John MacDuff, "Clefts of the Rock" 1874