He Loves to Be with the Ones He Loves

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Calvary Baptist Church

Holiday travel, everyone knows it’s not easy. Then why do we do it? Why do we stress ourselves preparing and fight the traffic just for a few hours of enjoyment? Why cram the suitcases so tight we can barely close them and endure the airports when we are not close enough to drive. Because we love to be with the ones we love.

We think of the joy of seeing the young children running up the sidewalk and into the arms of Grandma. We love to sit around the dinner table with family we haven’t seen since the last holiday. That moment when, for a moment, everyone is quiet as we hold hands around the table and thank God for the family and friends and the pumpkin pie and all the other food on the table. We love to sit down with mom or dad or grandma or grandpa and enjoy a cup of coffee before anyone else in the house gets up.

Let’s face it folks, we just love to be with the ones we love, and as for as the stress of traveling and the large crowds at the airport or the heavy traffic on the interstate, it is all worth it in the end.

Let me remind you that God loves to be with the ones He loves also. How else do you explain what He did? He couldn’t stand it, so He did something about it. Before coming to earth look at what it says he did in Philippians 2: 6 & 7: “Who being in the form of God, thought it not robbery to be equal with God: But made himself of no reputation and took upon himself the form of a servant and was made in the likeness of man.”

We ask ourselves why did Jesus travel so far?

I found myself asking that question when I spotted two squirrels outside our dining room window. The squirrels has made their home amid a pine tree on the east side of our house, just about 15 yards away from our patio. We’ve been neighbors now for about three years. Sue and I have even given them names. We can’t tell if they are male or female so we just named the Hopper and Chopper. That seems to fit since one likes to eat and the other one just hops around on the ground at the base of the tree. We even put corn out for them. Sometimes you will find them in the bird feeders eating sunflower seeds. They watch us sitting on the patio and we watch them hiding food. We are mutually amused. I could sit there and watch them for hours and sometimes I do, or until they get tired I guess and go up the tree and hide somewhere.

But you know what? I never considered becoming one of them or even imagined what it would be like to be one of them. The squirrel’s world holds no appeal to me. Who wants to sleep in a tree next to a birds nest with the bird looking at you with those little beady eyes. Who wants to give up the view of the Wichita Mountains, bass fishing, riding through the wildlife refuge, among other things for a nest or a hole in a tree and a diet of dirty nuts, bird seed, or acorns. You can count me out.

But count Jesus in. What a world he left. Our classiest mansion here on earth would be a tree trunk to him. The world’s finest cuisine would be walnuts on heaven’s table. And the ideal of becoming a squirrel with claws and little teeth and a furry tail? Folk’s that is nothing compared to God becoming a one – celled embryo and entering into the womb of Mary.

But he did. The God of the universe kicked against the wall of a womb, was born into the poverty of a peasant, and spent his first night here on earth in a feed trough of a cow. John 1: 14 says: “And the Word was made flesh, and dwelt among us, and we beheld his glory, the glory as of the only begotten of the Father,

full of grace and truth.” (KJV).

You see, the God of the universe left the glory of heaven and moved into the neighborhood. Our neighborhood! Who could have imagined he would do such a thing. And furthermore why would he do such a thing?

Because He loves to be with the ones He loves. And He loves each and every one of you.