Reflecting on Luke 3:21-22
"You are my dearly loved Son, and you bring me great joy." (Luke 3:22)When one of my children was young, they struggled with their sense of value.
At bedtime we would repeat, ‘you are a precious, much-loved child of God!’
To which they replied, ‘no I am not!’
We did this regularly, and urged them to say it back to us.
One time in grumpy reluctance they mimicked it back, not meaning it.
We kept this up for a long, but one time for some reason I forgot.
And they called out, ‘hey dad, you forgot something!’
When I didn’t catch on, they said out loud, in a positive way…
‘That I am a precious, much-loved child of God!’
To this day we still remind each other of this.
This is a precious memory of a deep and precious truth.
I tell this story often, as a way of reminding others of the same truth.
A deacon from a church I once visited years ago said they use it with their kids.
Just this past week a teacher showed me some answers from their young students.
The question was, ‘who are you’, and they wrote down that answer.
The teacher said, ‘your legacy lives on!’
I cannot take credit for this; I am passing on what I have received.
It begins with God, and is the unspoken message given to Adam and Eve.
Sadly they turned from this, and humanity lost sight of its precious identity.
God has always wanted to communicate this message, but we would not listen.
The heartbeat of the OT revelation is this message.
“Out of all nations you will be my treasured possession. Although the whole earth is mine, you will be for me a kingdom of priests and a holy nation.” (Exodus 19:5-6)
God speaks this message to Jesus, and Jesus receives it.
He not only receives it for Himself, but He passes it on to those around Him.
He not only communicates it in words, He communicates it in actions.
And the ultimate demonstration of this is in His suffering and death on the cross.
It is true that Jesus lives as God’s child in a God-pleasing way.
It is true that His actual life – how He lived – brought joy to God.
Our lives do not, for we do not live God-pleasing lives.
Yet as any parent knows, love for their child is not conditional.
The deep desire of the parent is for their child to know this.
To know it and to live in a way that receives, enjoys and shares it.
We don’t have to earn God’s approval, or impress God with our obedience.
He just wants us to live in, and to live out of, this deep love.
To love the God that loves us, and to love God’s other children as well.
The Father speaks both TO and THROUGH Jesus to us.
“You are my dearly loved child, and you bring me great joy.” (Luke 3:22)
If only we would receive it, and repeat it back to ourselves and others.
So many people live without a sense of their value.
People in their lives have communicated conditional love.
Or have refused to loved them, or constantly told them they were not enough.
In my opinion, one of root problems in our world is an identity crisis.
People struggle to know who they are, and Whose they are.
We pursue all kinds of identities to be known as someone of value.
Which is so sad, because despite all the lies, THEY ARE SOMEONE OF VALUE!
Jesus is God with us, showing us the life God wants for us.
Jesus is God with us, restoring us to the life God wants for us.
We do not earn this identity, it is freely placed upon us.
God’s Spirit is constantly coming to us and reminding us.
“You are God’s dearly loved child, and you bring God great joy.”
Can you believe, can you repeat it for yourself?
Will you pass it on to others, as part of your own legacy?
PRAYER
Lord Jesus, I am a precious, much-loved child of God. I bring great joy to God because I am His child. This does not excuse or ignore my failures and shortcomings, but gives me greater reason to grow in this love, and to show it to others. Help me to live IN and to live OUT this deep and precious truth, that everyone I meet would know that they too are precious, much-loved children of God!