Jesus loves us so much that He was willing to be treated as the lowest of humanity, to be born in a lowly manger, to live a self-sacrificing life of poverty, to sympathize and minister to suffering humanity, and then die an ignominious death. By His resurrection from the dead we are pledged with the power to obey God because Christ will live His resurrection life in us while also giving us the completeness of His death to sin in our place. We identify fully with Jesus and so become like Him in mind and character! We receive the perfect robe of His righteousness by faith--a faith that enters into our actual thoughts and feelings and allows us to be blessed with heaven's choicest blessings! Think of Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden before sin--that is a picture of the kind of holy lives Jesus is creating in these last days because His children behold His agonized struggle the Garden of Gethsemane. Christ's garden of agony is the pledge of our being able to experience, even NOW through constant union and communion with Him in His opening providences and blessings, the joy of Eden's bliss! Let us thank God that He loves us SO SO SO MUCH! Now let us honor Him by walking in that blessing, and pressing heaven in humble, earnest, sincere prayer for the greatest blessings He desires to pour upon us! Praise God!
"'That the thoughts of many hearts may be revealed.' In the light of the Saviour's life, the hearts of all, even from the Creator to the prince of darkness, are revealed. Satan has represented God as selfish and oppressive, as claiming all, and giving nothing, as requiring the service of His creatures for His own glory, and making no sacrifice for their good. But the gift of Christ reveals the Father's heart. It testifies that the thoughts of God toward us are 'thoughts of peace, and not of evil.' Jeremiah 29:11. It declares that while God's hatred of sin is as strong as death, His love for the sinner is stronger than death. Having undertaken our redemption, He will spare nothing, however dear, which is necessary to the completion of His work. No truth essential to our salvation is withheld, no miracle of mercy is neglected, no divine agency is left unemployed. Favor is heaped upon favor, gift upon gift. The whole treasury of heaven is open to those He seeks to save. Having collected the riches of the universe, and laid open the resources of infinite power, He gives them all into the hands of Christ, and says, All these are for man. Use these gifts to convince him that there is no love greater than Mine in earth or heaven. His greatest happiness will be found in loving Me." {The Desire of Ages, page 57, paragraph 1}
We find in Christ our greatest happiness by loving Him with the whole heart, mind, soul, and strength. It is only those who are truly happy in Christ that are ready for marriage, for raising children, and for living the principles of heaven while still physically on this earth. Without the joyful union and communion of the soul with Christ, every blessing Jesus would desire to give us would be spoiled by the miasma of selfishness. But a truly converted heart will only exude selfless love, which is always manifest in all of the fruits of the Spirit so that not one is missing. Already by faith we are seated in heavenly places in Christ when we are truly converted. Christ's dedication as an infant (for He was perfect at each stage of His development, as we may be once we are converted) is the pledge of our complete deliverance from sin and the power He gives us to live lives WHOLLY CONSECRATED to His service. Live in His will and IT WILL EXCEED YOUR HIGHEST EXPECTATIONS!
"Higher than the highest human thought can reach is God's ideal for His children. Godliness--godlikeness--is the goal to be reached. Before the student there is opened a path of continual progress. He has an object to achieve, a standard to attain, that includes everything good, and pure, and noble. He will advance as fast and as far as possible in every branch of true knowledge. But his efforts will be directed to objects as much higher than mere selfish and temporal interests as the heavens are higher than the earth." {Education, page 18, paragraph 3}
Praise the Lord!!!!!!!