The Greatest Love Story Ever Told - Guest Post

     The wonderful Allison from The Indwelling Word Ministries agreed to do a guest post for us. I hope you'll be blessed as we consider the Christ behind Christmas.

     It’s so easy to get caught up in the stockings, wrapping paper, and silver bells. It’s so easy, I have found, to forget that at Christmastime we celebrate not merely a Baby in a manger--but what He represents.  Christmas for us should be a celebration of the greatest love story ever told.

In the busyness of the season, it can sometimes be difficult to find time to ponder the real beauty of this message.  I know it has been that way in the past for me. But this year, as I’ve contemplated the exhortation in the old carol, “O come, let us adore Him, Christ the Lord,” I have been completely blown away by the love that the King of kings has towards me, a simple, ordinary maiden.

Think about it for a moment: Jesus, the Son of God.  Enthroned in the highest heaven.  Angels around Him day and night crying “Holy, Holy, Holy.”  Perfection, beauty, and holiness.  Complete strength, power, and authority.  All these were His, but He laid it all down that He might live inside an earthly woman’s body.  He left heaven that He might walk this earth and experience all the hardships of mankind.  Hunger, sadness, thirst, weariness.  He exchanged perfection in all its fulness...for this.

I sometimes use the following comparison to help my simple mind grasp the wonder of Christ’s sacrifice in coming to this world. It’s like if I decided to become an ant.  To live their boring and often difficult lives. To leave behind my comparatively more intelligent and wonderful life, so that I might live--and die--for the ants.  Now, while I would never do that and some might find it insulting that I compare humanity to insects, it helped me see in a new light the amazing sacrifice of Jesus.  Anyone who would make such a sacrifice either had to be out of his mind or immensely in love.

To think, He did it all because He loves us.  That thought is so humbling for me.  I, who am unworthy even to be the lowest servant in His kingdom.  I, who have shamed Him, spit at Him, blasphemed His name, and disowned Him.  Just think of His love, my friends!  Could you even imagine doing what He did?  My own love pales significantly in comparison to His.

His extreme humility and sacrifice isn’t the only way Christmas reminds us of the greatest love story ever told.  During this time of year, we also celebrate Immanuel, God with us.  I’ve never really taken the time to ponder those four words until this December.  I invite you to meditate with me for a moment on the wonder of a God who is with us.  For thousands of years before the birth of Christ, God wasn’t “with us.”  Have we ever stopped to think about what that reality would be like? If you had a need, a request, a confession--or anything, you couldn’t just shut your bedroom door and cry out to God, nor could you offer a silent prayer when a need arose in the market-place; you always had to go to the tabernacle. God is too holy, and we are too sinful.  There was no way sin could stand in the presence of God.

But then, He came. Holiness and perfection dwelt with humble sinners.  Think of the wonder of it all!  And now, through Christ’s death, Immanuel takes on a new meaning.  Now Christ is with us.  Now He dwells in our hearts.  He lives in us and through us.

Just think of the depth of His love for us, my friends.  It is incomprehensible, yet we are invited to come and comprehend it (Ephesians 3:16-19). To come and adore Him, Christ the Lord.  The greatest Lover of all time.

"He who does not love does not know God, for God is love. In this the love of God was manifested toward us, that God has sent His only begotten Son into the world, that we might live through Him. In this is love, not that we loved God, but that He loved us and sent His Son to be the propitiation for our sins." 

(1 John 4:8-10 NKJV)

"And we have known and believed the love that God has for us. God is love, and he who abides in love abides in God, and God in him." 

(1 John 4:16 NKJV)

In response to the immeasurable greatness of His love, I say with Emily Elizabeth Steele Elliott, “Come to my heart, Lord Jesus, there is room in my heart for Thee.”  I leave you with that beautiful song, and encourage you to ponder the meaning of her words and the wonder of His love this Christmas season!

Thou didst leave Thy throne and Thy kingly crown,

When Thou camest to earth for me;

But in Bethlehem's home was there found no room

For Thy holy nativity.

O come to my heart, Lord Jesus,

There is room in my heart for Thee.

Heaven's arches rang when the angels sang,

Proclaiming Thy royal degree;

But of lowly birth didst Thou come to earth,

And in great humility.

O come to my heart, Lord Jesus,

There is room in my heart for Thee.

The foxes found rest, and the birds their nest

In the shade of the forest tree;

But Thy couch was the sod, O Thou Son of God,

In the deserts of Galilee.

O come to my heart, Lord Jesus,

There is room in my heart for Thee.

Thou camest, O Lord, with the living word

That should set Thy people free;

But with mocking scorn, and with crown of thorn,

They bore Thee to Calvary.

O come to my heart, Lord Jesus,

There is room in my heart for Thee.

When the heavens shall ring, and the angels sing,

At Thy coming to victory,

Let Thy voice call me home, saying "Yet there is room,

There is room at My side for thee."

My heart shall rejoice, Lord Jesus,

When Thou comest and callest for me.