Amazing love

Who being in very nature God, did not consider equality with God something to be grasped, but made himself nothing by taking the very nature of a servant, being made in human likeness. And being found in appearance as a man, he humbled himself and became obedient to death, even death on a cross   Philippians 2: 5 – 8

These words perhaps sum up, more than any others, God’s amazing love for mankind made in his own image. This is what God did to win back man from the self inflicted life of sin. This is a love we will never truly understand but which we can spend eternity plumbing its depths.

When Adam and Eve were disobedient in the Garden of Eden and did the one thing God had told them not to do, the consequences were so awful that if they had known what would happen, I am sure they would have kept well away from the tree. It doesn’t seem possible that just eating an apple can cause all the devastation and distress in the world that we see today. But it wasn’t the eating the apple, it was doing the one thing they had been told not to do. It was not trusting God that his way was best. As a consequence of this one act, sin was unleashed to touch every part of creation with its cankerous, deathly fingers. The results were devastating.

Why didn’t God just wipe it all out and start again? The answer is out of love and a sure knowledge that another Adam would do exactly the same again. What was needed was a man who would live the life of obedience that Adam did not live. And that man was God’s Son – Jesus; leaving all the glory and majesty of heaven and becoming man – 100% man and 100% God.

Paul tells us that though he was God, he did not consider equality with God something to be grasped. As Andy Stanley says that means he never played the God card. He may have been God but he lived his life on earth as a man. Everything he did on the earth; all the miracles, healings, teaching and even his death – on a cross – was done as a man. The sacrifice had to be 100% perfect, obedient man.

That level of amazing obedience blows my mind away. That depth of love that endured the cross because of the joy it would bring (Hebrews 12: 2) was all for us. So we could live forever with him, free from sin and in wonderful intimate relationship with our Creator. Today let us spur ourselves on to greater obedience knowing the joy it will bring to the Father, Jesus and the Holy Spirit.

Thank you Father for sending Jesus. Thank you Jesus for your obedience even to death on a cross. Thank you that everything you did was as a man and is such a great encouragement to us that all things really are possible through Jesus Christ who gives us strength and is such a source of inspiration to us. Amen