Matthew 3:16

As soon as Jesus was baptized, he went up out of the water. At that moment heaven was opened, and he saw the Spirit of God descending like a dove and settling on him. 17 And a voice from heaven said, “This is my Son, whom I love; with him I am well pleased.”

When John the Baptist baptized Jesus, God not only gave His blessing to the life and ministry of His Son, but He also expressed His love for Jesus. The Old Testament reminds us that the blessing of a father on his son was extremely important, because of the great difference it has on the life of a child. Before his death Abraham blessed his son Isaac and gave him everything he owned. Genesis 25:13. The blessing was so important that Jacob with his mother’s help deceived Isaac into giving him the blessing due Esau the first born (Genesis 27:23). Later, Jacob wrestled all night with an angel of the Lord and would not let go until he had been blessed. So why is this blessing of love from the Father to the son so important? The love of the Father to His children is a proclamation that He is a Father who:

• Is not ASHAMED of His Kids. “This is my”

The Father not only has time to show up at His Son’s baptism but He is not ashamed of His Son claiming Him. Love is willing to show up and make its presence known and felt. The father screams out his love for his son as He wants the world to know who this kid belongs to “This is MY” In a few short hours Jesus would wander into the wilderness to be tempted by Satan and God wanted even Satan to know who Jesus belonged to. Salvation means that we belong to God but Satan loves to try and make us think that our Father is ashamed of us that He doesn’t really want to claim us. The sad reality is that many of us buy what he is selling, we think that our Father is ashamed of us, that He doesn’t really want to admit that we are His but that couldn’t be further from the truth Satan is just peddling his snake oil. God’s love speaks into one of our greatest needs which is to be wanted. At one of the biggest moments of Jesus’s life, the start of His ministry, the Father showed up, He was there and the world knew it. The question is do you know it?

• ADORES His Kids “whom I love”

Unlike many fathers, God was not afraid to say “I love you” because as His children we need to hear and see it. Jesus needed these words and the touch from his father. This experience of love is what launched Jesus’ ministry as the Messiah, it was at the beginning that God reaches down and touches His son and affirms Him and expresses His love for Him. God knew what lay ahead, and He knew the end when He would have to turn away because of our sin.  Often we do not feel like God regards us with loving admiration but just as it was with Jesus He has demonstrated His love by sends the Holy Spirit to touch our lives. God has communicated His love to us so that we can not only know it, but feel it with every fiber of our being.

• ACCEPTS His Kids “with him I am well pleased”

This is the love we all crave, Love apart from performance, the love in spite of not because of. God the Father gave His blessing on His Son at the beginning of His public ministry and not at the end. Jesus had not even started when His Father affirmed Him because the Father blessed Jesus for who He was and not for what He had done. God blesses you for who you are, you are created in the image of God and His blessing is on you as His child. You can say: “I am your son, whom you love; with me You are well pleased.” God is well pleased with you for who you are, not for anything you have done. It is time to stop trying to perform to earn His love because you can’t, it is a love that is given freely.