God loves the world in such a way

God so loved the world ...! We can never fully understand these simple words of the apostle. God loved the world fallen by sin, the world created by his voice and his hands. He loved him so much, he felt so much compassion and mercy, that he conceived the miracle of the incarnation to begin the time of the reconciliation of all men with him. God with us is more than the fulfillment of a prophecy, it is the most extraordinary expression of love of God. Was it fulfilled around these times 2,000 years ago? The date is not what matters, but the very fact of a birth conceived in heaven by the infinite and perfect mind of God and the birth of a child in humble condition, whose heart would be given to death so that all of us would return to reconcile with our creator.

God's love broke all the molds at the birth of Jesus Christ. With the baby Jesus humanity was reborn. God lives among us! Do you have eyes to see it? Our efforts were so unsuccessful to get closer to him, our sin so far removed us from his presence, that he takes the initiative and chooses out of love to draw closer to us.

This Christmas, like all of them, is another good opportunity that God offers you to get closer to Him. He is calling you, right next to you, knocking on the door of your soul to conquer you. “… If anyone hears my voice and opens the door, I will come in…” (Rev. 3:20). God is good. We don't deserve so much sympathy, yet He continues to visit us day after day. Isn't a Father content to be close to his children? How good it is to be aware of the many ways the Father has reached out to us! When Christ comes to you and conquers you and makes you surrender from the many rebellions you did against Him, from the times you denied Him for personal convenience or self-sufficiency, your whole mind and heart falls down in adoration. Christmas is worship.

Christ is among us to transform us from the new spiritual birth that you and I have experienced. Also, like Jesus, we have been begotten in the Spirit and born by the miracle of conversion. Only when we are born of the Spirit, our hearts cease to be of stone. There is no other way to understand Christmas, this reality that God is among us and wants to conquer the heart of each creature made of his hands and his mind and put his Spirit of life in Jesus Christ in each heart of this fallen humanity. God promised it through the prophet Exekiel hundreds of years before the Messiah was born. “I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit within you, and I will take away the heart of stone from your flesh and give you a heart of flesh. And I will put my spirit within you and cause you to walk in my statutes and keep my precepts and do them ”(Exekiel 36: 26-27).

Today we can enjoy a full relationship with God thanks to the child of Bethlehem. We can live in his presence if we have understood who we are in Christ, thus embracing our privileged identity. He was not born to just call us “Christian”, but to live in us, and transform us to the stature of His fullness. Celebrating Christmas in a Christian way is an attempt to correspond to the closeness that God has brought about with his birth, life, death and resurrection. But we must allow ourselves to be transformed, allow the child of Bethlehem to be born in us, make it grow and allow his Word to penetrate to the deepest recesses and reveal to us those corners of the soul that still have hearts of stone. Christmas can be an inspiration for us to begin to change. We already know that we cannot do it alone, because apart from Him, we can never achieve it.

That Christmas is also a tradition and the wicked take advantage of it for the wildness of their passions? Well, that is a matter that concerns God. It is up to us to pray for the lost and testify of our salvation that came to us since our brother Jesus was born. Christmas should also bring us closer to the lost, the homeless, the beggars of misery, the mothers who cry for their children and the children who cry for their parents. Also for that and for that, God has promised to always be among us. God bless you!