My oldest son and his wife recently paid us a visit all the way from Tennessee. My son wanted to show his wife Mt. Graham in the Pinaleño Mountains of southeast Arizona. My daughter and I tagged along and what a beautiful blessed day it was! The weather and the scenery were stunning!! We drove to Riggs Lake and stopped to stretch our legs and look at the lake and my son and I, being avid fishermen, stood for awhile together talking about the lake and the fish in it and dreamed of catching some nice trout. But alas, we didn’t bring our fishing rods! This picture got me to thinking about the relationship of our Heavenly Father and His Son Jesus Christ. From the very beginning Jesus was very intimate with His Father for Genesis 1:26 (see also John 1:1-4) shows us this: “And God said, Let US make man in our image, after our likeness:…” Jesus was with his Father before and during creation sharing the responsibility of creating the universe. We see it again from the lips of Christ in John 17:5 when He says to his disciples: “And now, O Father, glorify thou me with thine own self with the glory which I had with thee before the world was.” And what was Jesus to His Father? Matthew 17:5 says it all: “While he yet spake, behold, a bright cloud overshadowed them: and behold a voice out of the cloud, which said, This is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased; hear ye him.” Jesus’ Father called him my beloved Son! Jesus had all the glory and all the attributes of His Father! Jesus had everything in heaven! So why would Jesus want to give all that up and come to earth!? It is for one very important reason, which to every true believer is a mystery but is very real and true: God (and Jesus) loves us! John 3:16 tells us: “For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life.” God gave up His Son to death because God loves us without measure. Romans 8:31-38 sums it all up: “What shall we then say to these things? If God be for us, who can be against us? He that spared not his own Son, but delivered him up for us all, how shall he not with him also freely give us all things? Who shall lay any thing to the charge of God’s elect? It is God that justifieth. Who is he that condemneth? It is Christ that died, yea rather, that is risen again, who is even at the right hand of God, who also maketh intercession for us. Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? shall tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or sword? As it is written, For thy sake we are killed all the day long; we are accounted as sheep for the slaughter. Nay, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him that loved us. For I am persuaded, that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor powers, nor things present, nor things to come, Nor height, nor depth, nor any other creature, shall be able to separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord.” With this kind of love for us how can we reject that love and live our lives without him? We too can have the kind of relationship that God had for his Son by accepting Jesus Christ today as our personal Saviour. In this world of such turmoil and heartache, why put off that decision any longer!
