The Incarnation – All About Love

“By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you love one another.”  

       John 13:35 (TNIV)

It is no wonder that love should be the central focus of everything related to our Christian faith. After all, as John tells us in 1 John 4:8 that God is love. God is not only the origin and source of love; he has woven love tightly into the fabric of the universe. In a very real sense, as the song lyrics say, love does make the world go around, and human life is all about God’s love for us and God’s love in us.

God’s love for us is supremely demonstrated by what we call the Incarnation, which is the Son of God’s becoming human to make us his own brothers and sisters. Our salvation springs from the Father’s ever-faithful love and power. It is proven through Jesus Christ, the only name under heaven by which humans can be saved, and it is ministered to us abundantly by the Holy Spirit.

God’s love in us makes us a new creation. When the Father and the Son live in us through the Spirit, we love others. In Christ, we are freed from fear, from pride, and from the hatred that conspire to prevent us from enjoying the life of God. When we are in Christ, we are free to love others the way God loves us.

Jesus did not come just to forgive our sins; he came to heal our sinful nature and make a new creation of us. He doesn’t force us to accept his love, but because he loves us so dearly, his earnest desire is that we turn to him and find true life.

Jesus was born, lived, died, rose from the dead and ascended to the Father’s right hand as Lord and Savior and Mediator, having purified the sins of humanity. But he did not stop being human. He is still fully God and fully human. He is our advocate, our representative, standing in for us and substituting for us at the Father’s right hand. As the apostle Paul wrote in 1 Timothy 2:5-6, “For there is one God and one mediator between God and human beings, Christ Jesus, himself human, who gave himself as a ransom for all people.”

God has declared in Christ that you belong to him; that you are included; that you matter. Our salvation comes through the perfect will of the Father, who is unswervingly committed to including us in the joy and fellowship he shares with the Son and Spirit.

When you are in Christ, you are included in the fellowship and joy of the life of the Triune God. It means the Father receives you and has fellowship with you as he does with Jesus. It means that the love that God once and for all demonstrated in the incarnation of Jesus Christ is no less than the love the Father has always had for you — and always will.

That’s why the Christian life is all about love.

Prayer

Wonderful father, thank you your son became human so that we could be included through Him in your life and in the fellowship that you share with him and the Spirit.

Amen

Study by Joseph Tkach