He is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of all creation.
Colossians 1:15
I want you to try to imagine what the world would be like without the birth of Jesus Christ. It’s beyond our imagination, but just try to picture it. We certainly wouldn’t know God as we know Him. In fact, we’d be fortunate to have even heard about the God revealed in the Old Testament.
So what changed on that first Christmas so long ago? Well, when Jesus Christ came, the Bible says He was Immanuel… “God with us.” God was no longer a distant deity. He was no longer an unfathomable, unapproachable image. But God became flesh and blood; God was with us! That’s why Jesus would later say, “Whoever has seen me has seen the Father” (John 14:9).
When Jesus was born into the world, He was God! He wasn’t a man acting like God; not even God acting like a man; but God who was fully man and a man who was fully God! When Christ was seeing, that was God seeing. And when Christ was walking, that was God walking!
If Jesus hadn’t come, and if He weren’t God, we’d never have the knowledge of God we have today. So thank God today for sending Jesus to Bethlehem all those years ago so that you might have a clear picture of a God who loves you unconditionally!
THANK GOD FOR REVEALING HIMSELF TO YOU THROUGH JESUS SO THAT YOU COULD BE SAVED BY KNOWING HIM!
by Dr. Paul Chappell
“And, behold, there was a man in Jerusalem, whose name was Simeon; and the same man was just and devout, waiting for the consolation of Israel: and the Holy Ghost was upon him. And it was revealed unto him by the Holy Ghost, that he should not see death, before he had seen the Lord’s Christ. And he came by the Spirit into the temple: and when the parents brought in the child Jesus, to do for him after the custom of the law,”
Luke 2:25–27
If you have small children or grandchildren—or if you have ever spent any time around young people—you know that patience and Christmas don’t necessarily go hand in hand. There is a constant looking at the calendar, counting down the days, and occasional expressions of wishing “Christmas would just hurry up and get here already!” (That’s true for some of us adults as well.) Most of us find it difficult to be patient. We want things to happen on our schedule, but God wants us to trust Him with the timing as well as with the results.
We are not told in Scripture how much time passed between the message given to Simeon that he would live to see the Messiah and the birth of Jesus, but it appears to have been a considerable length of time. When Simeon met Mary and Joseph at the Temple, where they had gone to dedicate Jesus as the law commanded, his prayer of thanks and praise included an expression that his life was complete. He had dedicated himself to living in obedience to God and waiting patiently for what had been promised to Him.
God does not move on our timetable. Peter wrote, “But, beloved, be not ignorant of this one thing, that one day is with the Lord as a thousand years, and a thousand years as one day” (2 Peter 3:8). But God does always keeps His promises.
Today’s Growth Principle:
We can and should have full faith in God, even when we do not see Him working right away.
|
No comments:
Post a Comment