It was time for the big season to start. I (Sean) was 12 and ready to play Little League baseball. Prior to the first game my dad, Josh, got an idea about how to teach me—and my teammates—an important lesson. He bought 12 coupons good for ice cream sundaes at a local restaurant and took them to my coach.
“Coach, these are for the kids,” he said.
“Good,” the coach said with a big smile. “This is great. I wish more dads took an interest like this. I’ll take them for sundaes after our first win.”
“No, Coach,” Josh said quickly. “I want you to take them for sundaes after their first loss.”
My coach looked at my dad strangely. What Dad was saying wasn’t computing with the coach’s concept of winning, losing, and rewards for good play. So Dad proceeded to explain his thinking.
“Coach, I don’t know about you, but as I raise my kids I don’t want to acknowledge their success as much as their effort. And I don’t want to acknowledge their effort as much as their being created in the image of God. I believe my son is created in the image of God and that he has infinite value, dignity, and worth. None of these things have anything to do with playing baseball. If he never played baseball an inning in his life, I would love and accept him just as much.”
My coach looked at Josh for a long moment. Finally, all he could muster was, “That’s weird!” But he agreed to use the coupons as Dad instructed.
The season started and our team won their first few games. But we lost the third or fourth game, and the coach was true to his word. He gave each player an ice cream sundae coupon and we all went out to “celebrate” our loss.
Of course, my teammates and I certainly appreciated the sundaes. But there was an even greater benefit to my dad’s generosity. Over the next two weeks three of the kids on my team came up and thanked him for the special treat. One of my teammates, a boy named Jesse, came up to Dad and said, “Thanks a lot for the ice cream sundaes, Mr. McDowell. Wow! It doesn’t matter to you if we win or not—you love us anyway.” The lesson I learned so powerfully that day was that my dad accepted me no matter what.
A father rewarding his son and the baseball team when they lose a game may be weird. But God’s acceptance of us is even weirder. The apostle Paul said, “You were [God’s] enemies, separated from him by your evil thoughts and actions” (Colossians 1:21). We as humans didn’t just lose a sports game. We rejected God’s ways and his love and brought evil into his perfect world of absolute good. Yet Jesus came to die for us “while we were still his enemies” (Romans 5:10). It’s not just that we were undeserving—we were rebels against God. And since we were dead spiritually we couldn’t do anything to change our enemy status. If we were so undeserving and enemies of God, what kind of acceptance is it that motivated him to come to earth to die for us?
We can say that “God so loved the world that he gave his only Son” (John 3:16), and of course that is true. God’s love caused him to accept us even when we didn’t deserve it. But it was a unique kind of acceptance that finds its roots only in God. It was a love that accepted you and me without any conditions whatsoever. God was motivated by a love that embraced us for exactly who we were—undeserving rebellious sinners.
There is perhaps nothing that brings greater joy to the human heart than for another person to know all your faults and failures and, despite them, love you for being you.
God coming to earth isn’t based on anything you have done or could do in the future. It is purely the result of his grace. Every other religion in the world teaches that human effort is required to attain some type of “salvation.” But what some religions call salvation is essentially escape from evil with no prospect of joy. Buddhists explain that a person must go through countless cycles of reincarnation to reach what is called nirvana, which is essentially a state of personal oblivion. Islam teaches Muslims that they must work very hard to qualify for rewards that Allah may choose to give them. Mormons declare that grace is obtained only after a person does all he or she can do to receive salvation.
But Christianity teaches that humans are helpless and can do nothing to merit salvation. It is God who takes the initiative to reach out to his enemies. “God saved you by his special favor when you believed. And you can’t take credit for this; it is a gift from God. Salvation is not a reward for the good things we have done, so none of us can boast about it” (Ephesians 2:8-9). We state it again for emphasis: His grace was extended to us while we were gripped by death—sinners by birth and enemies of God. “When we were utterly helpless, Christ came at just the right time…God showed his great love for us by sending Christ to die for us while we were still sinners” (Romans 5:6,8). “Can we boast, then, that we have done anything to be accepted by God? No, because our acquittal is not based on our good deeds” (Romans 3:27). Regardless of all you’ve done—or haven’t done—he offers grace. God accepts you completely without any conditions, and in spite of your sin he provides a way back to him. That is more than weird!
God coming to earth in human form is about turning the paradise lost of Genesis into the paradise regained of Revelation, even though none of us deserves it. It is about abolishing our death sentence even though we have done nothing to warrant eternal life in relationship with God. “Life itself was in him,” John said, “and this life gives light to everyone” (John 1:4). Yet the basis of receiving such life is nothing we can do; it is strictly a gift from God.
The relational meaning of the incarnation is that you and I are unconditionally loved and accepted. There is perhaps nothing that brings greater joy to the human heart than for another person to know all your faults and failures and, despite them, love you for being you.
When Josh gave me (Sean) and my team ice cream sundaes after we lost our first baseball game, his gift said, “I know you messed up and didn’t really play that well, but despite your failure I love you.” My dad looked beyond my failures in playing baseball and loved me for being me. And how much more does God know us for all that we are, including our faults, failures, and sin—yet he accepts us without conditions. Bill and Gloria Gaither nailed it when they wrote the song “I Am Loved.” In that song they say, “The one who knows me best loves me most.”1
Accepted in Spite of Our Weaknesses
After I (Josh) became a Christian, I transferred to Wheaton College, a Christian school. The more I grew in my faith, the more I struggled over the challenge to give myself entirely to God. I resisted the challenge because I thought he might want me to go into Christian ministry, which meant only one thing to me—public speaking. At that time my poor grammar and stuttering problem I mentioned earlier were still very evident. As a result, it seemed to me that giving “everything” to God was giving him very little he could use.
Finally I said, “God, I don’t think I have any speaking talents or other gifts you can use in ministry. I stutter when I’m scared, and I speak horrible English. I have all these limitations, so you surely don’t want me in ministry. But if you can take these limitations and glorify yourself, then I will serve you the rest of my life with every breath I breathe.”
God accepted all of me, regardless of my limitations. And because he accepted me without any conditions, I could give him myself without reservation. And amazingly he did something with my limitations. I truly believe I am living a supernatural life because I am living beyond my human limitations.
I have now been privileged to speak about Christ to millions of people in over half the countries of the world. I am humbled when I realize how many have been reached through the writings in my books. After all these years, I still struggle a little with my grammar when I speak and write. Every time I address a crowd or begin work on a book, I am aware of both my weakness and the grace of God. He accepts me for who I am, weakness and all, and I couldn’t be happier. Webster says joy is “the emotion evoked by well-being, success or good fortune or by the prospects of possessing what one desires.” God’s unconditional acceptance of us, warts and all, evokes a deep joy that is hard to explain. While it takes the pressure off to perform, it creates a motivation to do our best. And when we do mess up, we are not condemned. The freedom of being accepted without conditions produces a relationship that is secure.
When someone accepts you for who you are, it gives you a sense of security. Since that kind of relationship is not based upon performance, it creates a natural vulnerability where you open up and trust another. Unconditional acceptance is the foundation of a healthy relationship because it engenders a security that gives you confidence that, no matter what happens, you’ll be loved.
The incarnation is a reflection of the Godlike acceptance that produces a secure relationship. We see this in Jesus dying for us while we were sinners and enemies of God. But we also see it in how he interacted with others. Take, for example, the Samaritan woman in John 4. She had three strikes against her socially: 1) She was a woman, who was inferior to men in that culture; 2) she was a Samaritan, a race of people despised by the Jews; and 3) she was immoral, living with a man who was not her husband. While Jesus exposed her sin, he engaged her in conversation without judgment or condemnation. As a result, the woman welcomed the truth when Jesus shared it, and her life was changed.
The Pharisees of his day criticized Jesus for fraternizing with “tax collectors and many other notorious ‘sinners’” (Matthew 9:11). Jesus replied, “Healthy people don’t need a doctor—sick people do” (verse 12). How does a doctor respond to a person who comes to him or her with an illness or injury? Can you imagine a doctor condemning the poor patient for being sick? “How stupid can you be? If you had been paying better attention, you wouldn’t have hit your thumb with the hammer.” No, the physician accepts the patient right where he or she is and focuses on providing the comfort and healing needed.
This is how the Incarnate One connects with us when we are in pain, trouble, or crisis. He doesn’t condemn us or criticize us, even though we may be in the wrong. God does not condone or overlook our sin either; it must be dealt with on his terms. But he loves us for who we are and accepts us at the point of our failure. And when we embrace such love and acceptance from God it gives us the joy of a secure relationship so we can say like Paul, “I am convinced that nothing can ever separate us from his love” (Romans 8:38).
Jesus not only accepts us for who we are, he identifies with all that we feel. He knows what we are going through, no matter what it is, and he understands it like no other. And that creates a bond and intimacy like nothing else can.
Remember, he experienced life as a human baby, child, teenager, and man. He suffered embarrassment, humiliation, and rejection. As God, Christ understood his creation perfectly. But by becoming a human being, he let us know how intimately and completely he identifies with us—and with all we experience.
Yes, God loved us and sent his Son in the form of a human being to die for us so we can have a relationship with him. But some tend to focus so exclusively on that central truth that they miss the full significance of how intimate he wants that relationship to be.
Because Christ took on human form, we can know that he affirms us in our weaknesses, pain, and temptations. He wanted me (Josh) to know that he identified with my humiliation as the son of the town drunk and with my sense of aloneness. He wants you to know that he identifies with your feelings of rejection when your child is not chosen for the basketball team or when you’re overlooked for a job promotion. He identified with you as you were teased cruelly by classmates or shunned by associates or “friends.” He can identify with what you feel when you are betrayed by a girlfriend or boyfriend, a co-worker, or a spouse.
Think of it: He is the all-sufficient Lord, yet when he was born to Mary he became as dependent as you were when you were a baby. He was the one who fashioned the human body, yet like you he had to learn to walk. He was the preexistent Word, yet he had to learn to speak, just as you did. He created clouds and rivers and lakes, yet he got thirsty. He endured the taunts of those who knew only part of his family’s story. He must have felt the almost unbearable weight of grief when his earthly father, Joseph, died. He suffered not only the physical torture of the cross as he died for you but also the anguish of being rejected, humiliated, denied, abandoned, and even betrayed by his closest friends. Why did he willingly go through all that?
Because he wants you to know that he understands. He suffered like a human being, and he wants to affirm you in your suffering. The writer of Hebrews tells us that Christ “has gone through suffering and temptation…[and] is able to help us when we are being tempted…[He] understands our weaknesses, for he faced all of the same temptations we do, yet he did not sin. So let us come boldly…and we will find grace to help us when we need it” (Hebrews 2:18; 4:15-16). There is nothing you have experienced that God in Christ does not understand firsthand! He, like you, has experienced
• rejection—by his own people
• abandonment—by his own disciples
• misunderstanding—by his own followers
• ridicule—at his own trial
• betrayal—by a close friend
• criticism—by the religious leaders of his day2
But that’s not all. He has also experienced human achievement and victories. He knows what it’s like to feel loved and accepted. He knows the joy of completing a job well done. He has heard the voice of his Father say, “This is My beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased” (Matthew 17:5 NKJV). He has also known the joy of fulfilling his Father’s will and the victory of conquering what no one has ever conquered: death.
He has experienced all the ups—and downs—of human existence. He’s “been there, done that”—wherever you have been. The incarnation is Jesus’ way of saying, “No matter what emotion you may be feeling, no matter what experience you may be enduring, I can identify with what you’re going through and I’m here for you.” This is the relational relevance of the incarnation.