Love is four words

It has always been my dream to go to Hawaii for my honeymoon. My dream has been granted in a greater way than I could ever have imagined or hoped for. God took me to Hawaii and taught me that love is four words.

The God whose creativity, ingenuity and wildness is so uncontainable that it burst forth the colour and diversity of the galaxies, the earth and its inhabitants. The God whose knowledge and wisdom is beyond reason or understanding. The God whose thoughts are innumerable and unfathomable. The God whose character is beyond comprehension or calculation, beyond definition or formula and beyond boundaries or constraints. The God whose glory, power and kingship is beyond man’s greatest tenacity. The God who is eternally surrounded by the worship of an angelic host.

That same God willingly left a place of perfection, power and authority and humbly chose confinement, limitation and submission to lower authorities.

Jesus chose birth out of a woman’s womb as a baby. He earned his living in a trade. He submitted to human authority - to his parents, to Caesar. He denied himself of food for 40 days. He experienced temptation. He needed help from an angel who once worshiped him in glory. He rode on a donkey.

He was betrayed and deserted by his closest followers. He submitted to the hands of human religious authorities. He was falsely accused. He was subjected to an unfair trial with no lawyer. He submitted to the whim of the Roman authorities. He submitted to the decision of a crowd of people. He lost everything – stripped even of the very clothes on his back. He subjected himself to the brute force of a Roman soldier company. He gave his precious head to a painful and shameful crown of thorns.

He was exposed and lifted up on an excruciating instrument of torture and death. He took upon himself all of the dark and wretched wrongs of this world. He was mocked and reviled by men as he hung dying. He was accused of everything he had never done. He died in my place.

He was forsaken by God.

As I consider the heights from which he came and the depths to which Jesus went because he so loved you and me, I finally start to glimpse the incredible significance of four simple words in Philippians 2:7.

He made himself nothing.

He took the crown of thorns I should have worn. He endured the shame I should have endured. He was naked and exposed so I could be clothed in garments of salvation and robes of righteousness. He left his throne in heaven so I could be a member of a royal priesthood. He bore my sin in his body so I could be righteous and holy, blameless in God’s sight. He was separated from his Father in heaven so I could be adopted as a child of God. He gave up everything so that I could have it all, more than I could ever earn, deserve or even imagine.

Who, being in very nature God, did not consider equality with God something to be used to his own advantage; rather, he made himself nothing by taking the very nature of a servant, being made in human likeness. And being found in appearance as a man, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to death—even death on a cross!

Therefore God exalted him to the highest place and gave him the name that is above every name, that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and every tongue acknowledge that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father. (NIV)