TODAY IS…

the perfect day to keep it simple.

“And a voice from heaven said, ‘You are My dearly loved Son, and You bring Me great joy.’”  Mark 1:11 NLT

Many of us have been blessed by God with the birth of a child.

Any of us who has been present at the moment our child takes his or her first breath of life outside the womb can recall that swelling of our heart with love as our child’s lungs swelled with new life. We can also recall the joy we felt as we witnessed – in a wrinkly, wailing, writhing little package – the future come to life before our very eyes.

As the years go by, our love for our children makes us want the very best for them that this world has to offer.

We want them to learn.

We want them to grow, physically and spiritually.

We want them to be happy.

We want them to be healthy and safe from harm.

We want nothing but good things for our children because God gave us the ability to give them life and we love them.

It is relatively simple.

God loved His Son, too. He loved Him so much that He filled Him with the power to offer salvation to the world; to save it from its sins and to heal and mend those who were sick and those who were broken.

At the same moment He filled His Son with the Holy Spirit, giving Him the power to do all of these things, God filled Him with the knowledge that His life on earth would end with His death at the hands of those He came to save.

But Jesus also possessed the conviction of the Father’s love for the Son, for He knew that the end of His life on earth would enable Him to be raised from the dead to join His Father in a glorious eternal life of love.

It was God’s love that gave life to the Son.

It was God’s love that gave the Son’s life for the world.

And as the Apostle John wrote “…love comes from God. Anyone who loves is a child of God and knows God. But anyone who does not love does not know God, for God is love.” (1 John 4:7b-8 NLT).

And it really is that simple.

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Taken from “TODAY IS….A Gift From God”, (C) 2013 Tony Casson