The Baptism of Jesus

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At the end of the Baptism of Jesus, a voice from heaven was heard saying, “This is my beloved Son, with whom I am well pleased.”

God the Father loves his Son. Not because of anything the Son has done. In fact, this is the beginning of the public ministry of Jesus. He hasn’t really done much yet. However, the Father expresses his delight in his Son because he wants his Son to exist, and he thinks the Son makes the world a better place just by being in it. That is precisely what the love of God means.

Whatever God wants to exist, he also delights in, He approves of it. If he did not, then it would not exist. It is that simple.

Do you exist? Yes. Then God delights in you.

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Christmas

Not only does God delight in you because he created you…

He went so far as to become something very small, a helpless little human baby, so that you could become something very great – a son or daughter of God.

Christmas is the mystery of this marvelous exchange:

O marvelous exchange! Man's Creator has become man, born of the Virgin. We have been made sharers in the divinity of Christ who humbled himself to share our humanity.

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Baptism

When you were Baptized the Holy Spirit descended within you, giving you a share in God’s life making you an adopted daughter or son of God. At your Baptism God the Father proclaimed to: This is my beloved son (or daughter), with whom I am well pleased

That is what God is trying to tell you in your Baptism. You are His child, He loves you not because of what you have done or have or have failed to do, but because of what you are – His son or daughter. Why do you love your children and think they are amazing? Just because they are your children! God loves you for the same reason!

You say, “No, that is not possible. I have so many sins, how could God delight in me?” A good Father or Mother doesn’t love their child because they are a high-performance kid. They love their child because it’s THEIR CHILD. And that’s why God, your Father, loves you. Just because You’re His Child!

Recognizing that love should take away your anxiety about measuring up. Recognizing that love should make you strong, it should make you confident that you belong in the world, and that the universe is better because you are in it, and that God is pleased, because you are his kid.

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We were made for Delight.

Joy or Delight is the response to something experienced as good, and it invites us to rest in that good.

Delight or Joy is the emotion that prompts you to stop, sit down and delight in the magnificent 360 degree view once you’ve reached the summit of a mountain. It says, “This is a good place to be. Let’s stay here.”

Delight is the experience you feel when your kids come home and you’re sitting around the fire and the conversation is good and you don’t ever want the night to end.

We were made to delight in truth and beauty and goodness, and it is all around us.

But to delight we must become aware of what is good.

God is good.

He created a good world.

He created you to be very good.

So slow down and think about that. You are good. God delights in you – so you should too.

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Go and be Apostles of Delight

God delights in every person he made. But people don’t believe they are good – they don’t believe delights in them.

This happens for all kinds of reasons but we can change that.

God created a system where we would be His apostles of delight.

People need to know from some human that they have value before they will believe God thinks they are valuable. So that is the first step in our mission. Show people their worth by delighting in them.

He wants us to go to people and express to them that we delight in them. We think they make the world a better place just by being in it.

Dogs are apostles of delight. Every time your dog sees you it wags its whole body saying, “Master, I just think you are the greatest thing in the world.”

Now, I don’t expect or want you to wag your body, but I do want you to express to your spouse, kids, parents, boss, co-workers, friends, everyone you encounter that it is good that they exist. The world is better just because they are in it.

Go and be Apostles of Delight.