It’s kind of hard to get over christmas after only two days of celebrating it. I don’t intent to ever get over it by the way. This painting hangs in my livingroom all throughout the year.
I feel this whole thing of God becoming a baby has not even properly sank in yet.
I was raised christian and although I am thankful for that the danger is you’ve heard certain stories so often you don’t even realise the true meaning of them eludes you. Like christmas.
I think the bigger our conception of God is the more this amazes us.
Just think of it a bit longer. God became a man.
The Creator became part of his own creation. I think that is pretty amazing.
So what does christmas tell us? What’s the message?
First I think the picture of a baby being born in a filthy stinking barn is quite an accurate picture of the state of the world Jesus came into.
Jesus, innocent like a baby, did not come into a perfect sinless world. If that was the case then He didn’t need to come at all. He came because the world was dirty and needed cleaning up badly.
He didn’t come to condemn us, He came to save us from our dirt. To take that sin away from us.
To wash us clean from our guilt and then to change us into new persons that were not addicted to sin anymore but that were now able to choose freely the kind of life they want to live.
He gave us the ability to obey him, which we hardly were able to do before.
That’s why He came.
Second I believe God becoming a baby shows us how approachable God is for us.
He is not some angry distant deity far away on a high mountain we need to climb.
He cares about us so much He wants to be in relationship with us.
It has been like that from the beginning. Men turned away from God through rebellion but before they rebelled they walked closely with him in a place called the garden of Eden, which means delight.
They were delighted which each other. God was delighted with men, men were delighted with God, and men were delighted with each other.
That all changed in one moment.
A fallen angel, named Lucifer (later called the devil or satan, which means accuser, because he accuses us all the time) came into the garden in the form of a snake, and seduced men to disobey God.
He made them doubt about God’s good intentions toward them.
Lucifer himself, once a beautiful radiant angel gifted with many talents like music, became proud of his gifts and beauty and didn’t realise they came from God. That He had given those things to him freely out of love for him and the other creatures who would be blessed by them as well.
He failed to see how much God cared for him and had blessed him tremendously.
I don’t know why but for some reason it is or was possible to be in heaven with God and yet not know his love. At least for the angels.
It seems it has something to do with the free will God gives to the creatures He makes. Or at least to some of them like the angels and men.
Somehow Lucifer did not believe God loved him and therefore he rebelled against Him. He thought God was holding out on him and that it was desirable to be God himself. God had no other choice than to kick him out of heaven, together with one third of the angels Lucifer had managed to pursuade to rebel against God with him. I don’t know what those angels were thinking. They didn’t seem to be very smart to me though, since now they basicly made Lucifer their new god. What made them think he would be better?
Maybe that’s what we humans often do as well. We don’t like the notion of a God that is above us, and we can’t really believe He loves us, because there are certain things we don’t understand like sickness and suffering, so we reckon ourselves to be god instead. We probably don’t call ourselves god consciously but we do so nonetheless when we consider ourselves to be the highest autority in this world and don’t acknowledge God.
We also make other people and things in our lives god by giving them a place that only God should have. Like those things are better than God…
So the question remains: Is there room for God in our lives?
It seems amazing to me that we even get to ask ourselves that question.
I mean how is it possible that we even get to doubt God’s existence?
How can God allow us not to believe in Him?
Now that’s an interesting question right?
What does it say about God that He let’s us question Him?
That He allows us not to believe that He is good and kind towards us?
That He allows us even to rebel against Him and call Him all kinds of blasphemous things?
Why does he allow all this?
I think all people have at least one moment in their lives they have an understanding, a knowing deep inside, that God exists and made all this.
Yet we seem to be able to suppress that understanding and to live the rest of our lives in unbelief, even unbelief of his very existence.
How can this be?
I believe it has all to do with the kind and tender nature of God.
He is tenderhearted towards all of us. He is gentle.
He does not bark into our lives like a bulldozer and forces us to believe in Him and acknowledge Him as God.
That could never lead to a loving relationship with Him could it? We wouldn’t trust Him to truly care for us and to give us a free choice. We would be like slaves forced to obey. Robots even.
But God wants to be involved in our lives and He wants us to want Him.
Now that is one of the things that truly amazes me about God. That He wants us. That He longs for a connection with us. That He wants to communicate with us during our lives.
It brings me back to the chrismas story.
Of a God in the form of a baby. A baby that not only brings joy, but that we can bring joy to as well.
We humans can bring joy to God, simply by being his children and having a relationship with Him daily!
So the question is: ”Is there room for God in YOUR life?”
He loves you and He desires you!
Do you want HIM too?
If you never made the decision to become a child of God you can do so now.
Don’t wait. Life is short and you don’t know if you’ll have another chance to come to Him.
You can come to Him any moment, but you might not be willing to another time. You might just forget about Him, like we all so often do.
And you might not live another day. But if you are his child, you will be with Him forever and death won’t be the end of your life. Rather it will be the beginning of something new.
But if you’re not his child and you die today you will be separated from Him forever and both you and God will eternally long to be together, you with Him and He with you. But then it won’t be possible anymore because it has to be a free choice. Once you see his full glory after you die you can’t choose anymore. Anyone will be compelled to bow down to Him and worship. You only have a free choice now, in this lifetime. So take it. Accept his invitation to become his child.
He loves you deeply, more then you know!
Click on the link below if you want to make this decision that will change your life forever.
You will never be alone. You never have been by the way, but you may not have known it.
Creator's Joy 