MAX ON LIFE

16. If God knew in advance that, after Jesus left heaven for a time, Jesus would be reunited with him and that Jesus' death would save humanity, it doesn't really seem like a sacrifice to me. What did God give up?

I've considered this question, not just since your inquiry but for much of my life. Exactly what did God give up when he gave his Son to the world?

I've decided I cannot know. Why? Because I have never been to heaven. When God gave us his Son, his Son gave up heaven. Try to imagine that sacrifice. What if you were to leave your home and become homeless or leave the human race and become a mosquito or a wasp? Would that be comparable to God's becoming human? Jesus, whose address in heaven was Everywhere, limited himself to a human body in a map-dot town on the fringe of the Roman Empire.

Of course, as you said, he did this "for a time". Maybe that is part of the sacrifice. God is timeless, unbound by clocks or calendars. And for a time he entered time.

But as I said, I've never lived in heaven, and I've never been eternal, so I can't understand what he gave up.

Nor have I been sinless, so I can't imagine what it was like to become sin. This is the heart of the Christian gospel. That he who had no sin took on sin (2 Cor 5:21). That Christ on the cross became a sinner in the eyes of heaven. That he experienced the pain and punishment due to every rapist, thief, mass murderer, and despot.

He paid the price for sin by becoming a sinner. Since I've always been a sinner , I can't appreciate this sacrifice.

And I've never given my child for evil people. I might give myself or a bit of myself to help evil people. But sacrifice one of my daughters? No way. Even if I knew I would see her again, I wouldn't do it. But God did.

It seems to me that God gave more that we could ever ask.

By: Max Lucado