Truly He taught us to love one another.

His law is love and His gospel is peace.
Chains shall He break, for the slave is our brother,
And in His name all oppression shall cease.
Sweet hymns of joy in grateful chorus raise we.
With all our hearts we praise His holy name.
Christ is the Lord! Then ever, ever praise we.
His power and glory ever more proclaim!
His power and glory ever more proclaim!

I just love this season. From Thanksgiving to CHRISTmas, the days are usually filled with wonderful memories for me! As you can tell by my blogging (or lack of), they are also busy days! 🙂 But in the midst of it all, one the most wonderful things to me about this season is the music. Indeed I do love music, but CHRISTmas is so filled with meaning and deep truths about the Messiah.
I wish we would sing it all year – the doctrines in CHRISTmas music are phenomenal.

Do we even realize what we are singing when we proclaim through music – Emmanuel!
Is it real to us when we sing Christ is the LORD?!
Could there be any greater doctrine preached than in the words we sing:
Christ, by highest heaven adored. Christ, the everlasting Lord;
Late in time behold Him come, offspring of a virgin’s womb.
Veiled in flesh the Godhead see, hail the Incarnate Deity,
Pleased as man with man to dwell; Jesus, our Emmanuel.

The words to the song O Holy Night were written in 1847. That’s a few years ago! 🙂 And yet I’m struck with the meaning in this particular verse I posted. His law is love!  Truly amazing words. God with us = LOVE came down at CHRISTmas.
I am going to attempt to blog over the next few weeks about my thoughts this CHRISTmas. I have been stirred to thinking and meditating on the fact that when Christ came in the form of a baby, God came to the world. Why did He choose this way? For one thing, I don’t think we could have ever understood that His law is love if He had not come as a man and showed us what that meant. Through Brent’s messages these past weeks (Sermon on the Mount), I guess I’ve been thinking more than ever about the teachings of the Christ – the God Man! And now with CHRISTmas songs everywhere, I’m challenged to question myself daily: Do I believe that God came in the flesh? And that while here on earth, as a Man, He taught us how to love one another and then He showed us how to love one another? His birth, His life, His death … all to demonstrate how much He loves us. If I do believe it, does it change the way I think and speak and live?

Psalm 73:28 says that it is good for me to be near God! And yet the truth is …. God came near to ME. And it is so good. He did so because of love. He wanted to break the chains of sin in the lives of people in bondage. But the only way to free us was to become one of us. The Word became flesh and lived among us.
In December of 2001, just months after 9-11, John Piper preached a message on Christ  becoming flesh and entering the world. He made a provocative statement (as only Piper can) at the end of that message:

And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us.” This is the meaning of Christmas. God has come into the world, born of virgin, in the person of Jesus Christ. Christmas is like God sending His Son into the world to find all the Bin Ladens of the world, hiding in the caves of darkness and death. Instead of throwing flames into the caves, He first stands at the mouth of the caves and says, “Come out into the light for I have died on the cross for sinners; if you will receive Me as your God and your Substitute and your Treasure, My death counts for your death and My righteousness counts as your righteousness, and you will have eternal life.

His law is love and His gospel is peace! In His name, all oppression shall cease!
Well …. thinking and thinking ….