Christmas is the season for gifts. Our Great God gave us the greatest and most precious gift in His Son! You may think that it is a bit eagerly to be talking about gifts and Christmas, however, Christmas always comes on December 25th of every year. I also know that many people procrastinate about doing their Christmas shopping. There are many excuses for delaying the gift buying and shopping for loved ones. The crowds are always brutal. This is especially true if the gift you want is the same gift everybody else wants and the gift is in limited supply. Remember the movie “Jingle All The Way? I have heard of crazy stories of gifts that were bought at the last minute, literally at the last minute on the way home from work on Christmas Eve. A friend of mine waited so late to get a gift for his wife [which was the only gift he had to shop for] and stopped by a convenience store and brought her an Ironing Board cover! Can you say Doghouse!
Now, I have been known to blow it as well on the gift purchasing department. I won’t bore you with the details of how many gifts were returned because on the spur of the moment I bought something I thought was wonderful! Let’s us think about this gift giving and buying exercise for a bit. When you and I buy gifts, we probably should have the person or receiver in mind when we purchase the gift. I think sometimes we think of what we would like to have and then buy that gift for the person instead.
When we reflect on our gift buying and compare it to Our Father in Heaven, we really fail in comparison. God “bought” the greatest gift for us in His Son. No amount of money could purchase this Gift of Jesus. When we buy gifts, we most always think of the price. The Father Gave All in Jesus! Instead of buying a gift that we would want or like to have; God bought us the Gift we NEEDED most. All of us are bankrupt and without life itself if we don’t have Jesus, for He is the GIVER of LIFE and LIGHT.
Sometimes we give gifts based on how good or bad someone has been through the year. Lump of Coal and the “Good and Naughty List” ring any bells! We deserved nothing, but God gave us everything. The giving of the gift was based on the Character of God, not on our behavior performance.
Our Heavenly Father was/is not a procrastinator. He had planned from the foundation of the world this plan of giving the GIFT of REDEMPTION. Galatians 4:4 – in the fullness of time, God sent forth Jesus. So, this gift of Jesus was no last-minute decision. Jesus came into the world He created to be the gift of Salvation to all who would believe. Jesus was wrapped up and placed in a manger on the original Christmas day.
We play a game at Christmas call “White Elephant Exchange.” Sometimes the gifts are just something we no longer wanted and chose to dump it on someone else. God brought a Gift to Exchange with us. If we would receive His gift by faith and trust in Jesus for salvation, then there were other gifts coming. Look up Ephesians 4:7-11. God our Heavenly Father has US in mind completely when He sent Jesus to be the Savior of the world.
Now this gift from God – Jesus, is available for all people and all nations. You do not have to wait until December 25th to “OPEN” the gift! Your Name is on this wonderful gift – open you heart and receive the GREATEST GIFT IN THE WORLD FROM THE GREATEST GIFT GIVER EVER!
Do not wait, Christmas comes every year at the same time, yet people will delay or ignore the time is getting so close. Jesus will one day come for His people. Some are ready, some are waiting, and some will never accept the gift of salvation through Jesus Christ our Lord. Imagine if you will what it would be like if you bought the most expensive gift, then the person you bought it for rejected it?
DO NOT DELAY – Christ is coming, He is closer than you think!
preachbetweenthelines 
Incarnation of Christ
We all know the various prophecies that tell of Jesus’ birth in the Old Testament. These predictions come to fulfillment in the New Testament. There are many questions of how Mary could conceive a child without a man; the conception being through the Holy Spirit. When we try to imagine God putting on flesh like the very creation He, himself fashioned – well that becomes mind blowing. “The Word became flesh and dwelt among us, we beheld His glory as the Only Begotten Son, full of grace and Truth.” [John 1:14] In the beginning was the Word, The Word was in the beginning with God, and the Word was God. The incarnation is the revelation to Mankind of the presence of God in visible form. Jesus told His disciples “if you have seen Me, then you have seen the Father; I and the Father are One.” [John 14]
When I think of the story line of scripture, from Genesis with God making man from the dust of the earth and breathing into him the “breath of life, and man becoming a living soul, I am overwhelmed. When I think of the Fall in the garden of Eden and the devastation as a resulted, that even Creation cries out for restoration and reconciliation – it again is overwhelming. The Law of Moses given to try and reveal to harden mankind the failure and inability to be holy and to restore ourselves to the Only God – our creator, the situation seems hopeless.
Thinking through the past four and half years of blogging, the scripture reinforces the fact that only God can restore mankind back to Jehovah. No matter how holy or righteous we are in our behavior and attitudes, we will always fall short. Even today in churches across North America the clarion call is for “disciple making” instead of sharing the Gospel through evangelism. Men must be saved, not instructed on how to live better lives.
Jesus came because the Father in Heaven so loved us. Jesus came because it was the Trinity’s plan to do so. At the end of the Law there was not the restoration of mankind. Sin had not been dealt with, and mankind had become institutionalized by religious performance. The Pharisees and Sadducees in particular revealed the hypocrisy of performance oriented religion that makes us feel good about ourselves; yet does nothing to reconcile us to God.
Jesus came to show us the Father; He came to make the invisible, visible – Col 1. Jesus is the second Adam, for the first Adam, although created holy and innocent, rebelled and believed the lie of Satan, that man could live without God. Jesus, as the second Adam, revealed what mankind “could have been” had they lived in obedience to the Father.
Jesus was subjected to temptation and sin like as we all are, yet without sin. He [Jesus] came to be the vicarious atonement for all sin, the enmity that separated man from God would once and for all be dealt with, and the Accuser of the brethren – Father of lies would be dealt an eternal blow. Jesus came to deal with our sin, defeat Satan, and rose again for our justification – all by faith that the Father would be faithful to His own word. In the Birth of Jesus, a new era or day came. No longer would men be shackled by The Law requirements. Faith in Christ as the Anointed, Messiah to do for man, what man could never do for himself – to give life instead of death, to give hope in a hopeless situation. This Jesus born of a Virgin, lying in a cradle would change history forever, regardless of who sat on the thrones of kingdoms of earth. This Jesus would serve and be sacrificed as a Lamb before God, and God would be pleased – opening the pathway for all who would call upon Jesus as Savior and Lord to begin “New Life” being a “new Creation” having the Breath of Life breathed back into them. Oh, what a story of redemption!
Thank God for His amazing Love, Grace, Mercy and Hope – all because Yahweh acted on our behalf. The Plan of God is not complete, for this Jesus will return in like manner one day. Acts 1. Until then let us rejoice and live out that which is now living in us – Christ in You the Hope of Glory [Col 1:27]
Merry Christmas!
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Tagged as Breath of Life, christmas, incarnation, Jesus Christ, justification, reconcilation, restoration, second Adam, vicarious death