Jesus walked the planet the last three years telling people who He was and backing it up with signs and wonders.

He actually told us we didn’t have to believe that He was the Son of God if He didn’t back it up this way… But for His first thirty years, Jesus, the Father revealed, perfect theology, Love in human form, lived among humanity and only a handful of people knew it.

Some might be tempted to think that Jesus first thirty years were not as significant as the last three years simply because we have no miracles to measure Him by. However, I think that those first thirty years are the reason He lived like He did the last three.

And so we find Jesus at the age of thirty on the shores of the Jordan River where He meets John the Baptist and is submerged under the water. The heavens open and a dove descends, and a voice like thunder rumbles, “This is my Son, whom I love. With Him I am well pleased”

In other words, “well done.”

The question has to be asked. Why was the Father pleased? What had Jesus done?

I would like to suggest that the first thirty years of Jesus time on earth was spent becoming sure in His Fathers always-good love. For thirty years Jesus saw His Fathers nature, and then saw more of His Fathers nature, and then saw more of His Fathers nature. For thirty years Jesus knew His Fathers love, and then knew more of His love, and more of His love. For thirty years Jesus grew in wisdom and favor until the absolute goodness of His Father was so deeply interwoven into His heart it was the only reality He knew. For thirty years Jesus became surer, and surer, and surer…

AND then, after thirty years, and in the fullness of time, God with us, perfect love, gets a “Well pleased.” He gets a “well done Son.”

This is absolutely amazing! Jesus got a “well pleased” before He did anything! He got a “well done” without any earthly evidence of doing.

Think about it, He got the well done before He turned water into wine, before He walked on water, before He made more food out of less. He got the well done before He healed the blind eye, the deaf ear, the lame, before He cleansed the leper. He got the well done before He cast out demons and set people free. He got the well done before He raised the dead.

He got the well done before He went into a wilderness, before He went to a cross, before He rose, before He saved all of humanity and set us free from slavery to need. He got a well done before He ascended and then descended in the form of the Holy Spirit to release us into a brand new one of a kind intimate revelation of His perfect love.

He got the well done before He raised up world-changing disciples.

As far as we know, Jesus got a “well done,” before He did anything. And I think this “well done” is what empowered Him to “do.” I believe all the beautiful works He did over the last three years of His life was the evidence of the first thirty years of becoming sure in His Fathers always-good love.

I would like to suggest that those thirty years of seeming obscurity had nothing to do with doing and everything to do with becoming sure in His Fathers love. It was about intimacy. It was about seeing the Father and becoming sure as His Son.

I would like to suggest that when we get to heaven and we get a well done, it won’t be for what we did, it will be for how sure we became in our Fathers love. The doing will simply be the evidence that we believed He loved us.

Jason Clark is a writer, speaker and lead communicator at A Family Story ministries. His mission is to encourage sons and daughters to grow sure in the love of an always-good heavenly Father. He and his wife, Karen, live in North Carolina with their three children.

YOU ALSO MIGHT LIKE…