ApprehendingGrace.com

Check out this YouTube video. It put a more human face on the birth of Christ than anything I’ve ever seen or read. See the joy and awe on the faces of those around Him as He is born.

Lord, let us experience the same joy and awe as we journey through this last week before Christmas.

During this Christmas season, it seems that all my prayers look toward Good Friday more than Christmas – toward the death of Jesus on the cross instead of the baby born in a manger. When my husband pointed this out to me, I began to reflect on it. Christmas, the season of rejoicing at the birth of a Savior, is inextricably linked with Good Friday, a day of extreme sorrow. Christmas, the day of the birth of a King, stands next to Easter, the day of the murder of a King. Hmmm.

The more I reflected on it, the more I realized how appropriate this juxtapositioning is – because the entire purpose of Christ’s birth was fulfilled in His death and resurrection. Without Christ’s death and resurrection, His birth would have simply been a footnote in history. Instead, his birth, life, death and resurrection are the turning point of history.

The angel Gabriel declared the purpose of Jesus’ life to Joseph in a dream when he said “And she [Mary] will have a son, and you are to name Him Jesus, for He will save His people from their sins” (Matthew 1:21, NLT).

Jesus’ purpose for being born was to save His people from their sins! What a lofty sounding destiny! Of course, another way of saying it is much less lofty sounding – Jesus was born to die! You see, the payment that is required for our sin is death. Someone must make that payment. Christ was born so that He could make the payment for us. His death enables us to bypass death and experience life forever.

Christ also suffered when He died for our sins once for all time. He never sinned, but He died for sinners that He might bring us safely home to God. He suffered physical death, but He was raised to life in the Spirit. 
      1 Peter 3:18, NLT

For the wages of [required payment for] sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life through Christ Jesus our Lord.
      Romans 6:23, NLT (bracketed words are my amplification)

Christ was born to die, and it was a destiny that He obviously knew from some very early age. I can’t help but wonder how knowing that His destiny was to die affected the way He lived His life. How would it affect mine? How about yours?

And then it hit me…we do have that destiny! Read this passage:

It is destined for each person to die once, and after that to face judgment.
      Hebrews 9:27, (my paraphrase)

We are also destined to die! After our death comes judgment. For those who have accepted God’s free gift of eternal life, we are raised from the death, just as Jesus was, to live eternally with God. For those who have not accepted God’s free gift of eternal life, death rules in judgment.

I find myself agreeing with Paul who wrote the following to the Corinthians:

¹As God’s partners, we beg you not to reject this marvelous message of God’s great kindness. ²For God says,
    ”At just the right time, I heard you.
    On the day of salvation, I helped you.”
Indeed, God is ready to help you right now. Today is the day of salvation.
      2 Corinthians 6:1-2, NLT

What does it mean to accept God’s free gift? It means to agree with Him and give Him control of your life. Agree first that you have done wrong and need His forgiveness. Believe that Christ died on the cross as the payment required for your wrongdoing. Yield your will to God’s will by determining to live according to His plans for your life instead of your own plans.

Then set about learning more and more about what those plans are. Because although our destiny might be to die and face judgment one day, God also has purposes and plans for our lives that go beyond ourselves.

My [Jesus'] purpose is to give life in all its fullness.
John 10:10b, NLT

¹¹For I know the plans I have for you,” declares the LORD, “plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future. 
      Jeremiah 29:11, NIV

Accepting God’s free gift of salvation not only brings eternal life, it also enlarges our earthly life. Can you dare miss out on such a “marvelous” opportunity to receive “God’s great kindness?”

Hear the heart of God in the following Old Testament passage:

¹But now, O Israel, the LORD who created you says: “Do not be afraid, for I have ransomed you. I have called you by name; you are mine. ²When you go through deep waters and great trouble, I will be with you. When you go through rivers of difficulty, you will not drown! When you walk through the fire of oppression, you will not be burned up; the flames will not consume you. ³For I am the LORD, your God, the Holy One of Israel, your Savior. I gave [your enemies] as a ransom for your freedom. ⁴Others died that you might live. I traded their lives for yours because you are precious to me. You are honored, and I love you.
                                               Isaiah 43:1-4 (NLT)

This passage speaks of how precious Israel (that is, the people and the country) is to God. They are His chosen people and he tells how He sacrificed their enemies to save them, how He gave up some lives to save Israel because she is so precious to Him. God even says simply “I love you.”

Don’t just read the words. Feel the emotion. Imagine that it is your husband or wife saying the words to you. How would you feel? Your spouse is saying that he/she paid a ransom for you – the life of someone else for your life. You must be incredibly precious!

But perhaps you’re a skeptic and think, “Well, they were Israel’s enemies that God gave as a ransom. It’s not like they were important to Him.” Au contraire, my friend. All life is precious to God, and those He calls enemies are those who have chosen to be His enemies. A message that sometimes seems to get lost in the Old Testament is that God called “His people” not only the Israelites, but all who chose to trust Him. Rahab and Ruth, for example, were not born Israelites, but they chose to align themselves with Israelites. As Ruth said, “Your people will be my people and your God will be my God” (Ruth 1:16).

God shows the same attitude in the New Testament toward His people as He showed in the Old Testament. But in the New Testament, the Israelites have clearly rejected God.

¹⁰But although the world was made through him, the world didn’t recognize him when he came. ¹¹Even in his own land and among his own people, he was not accepted. ¹²But to all who believed him and accepted him, he gave the right to become children of God. ¹³They are reborn! This is not a physical birth resulting from human passion or plan – this rebirth comes from God.
                                               John 1:10-13 (NLT)

God offers His love to everyone, and those who accept the gift of forgiveness and salvation that He’s offered began to be called “Christians.” It’s the term we still use today.

Let’s look at that first Old Testament passage again:

¹But now, O Israel, the LORD who created you says: “Do not be afraid, for I have ransomed you. I have called you by name; you are mine. ²When you go through deep waters and great trouble, I will be with you. When you go through rivers of difficulty, you will not drown! When you walk through the fire of oppression, you will not be burned up; the flames will not consume you. ³For I am the LORD, your God, the Holy One of Israel, your Savior. I gave [your enemies] as a ransom for your freedom. ⁴Others died that you might live. I traded their lives for yours because you are precious to me. You are honored, and I love you.
                                               Isaiah 43:1-4 (NLT)

The concepts and words that stand out in my mind are:

• God ransomed us
• He will protect us
• He is our Savior
• Others died that we might live
• We are precious, honored and loved

Remember those concepts and words as you read the following New Testament passages. In this first one, Jesus describes why He came to earth:

[Jesus is speaking] “For even I, the Son of Man, came here not to be served but to serve others, and to give my life as a ransom for many.”
                                               Matthew 20:28 (NLT)

Peter amplifies Jesus’ words in his first letter:

¹⁸For you know that God paid a ransom to save you from the empty life you inherited from your ancestors. And the ransom he paid was not mere gold or silver. ¹⁹He paid for you with the precious lifeblood of Christ, the sinless, spotless Lamb of God. ²⁰God chose him for this purpose long before the world began, but now in these final days, he was sent to the earth for all to see. And he did this for you.
                                               1 Peter 1:18:20 (NLT)

How precious we must be to God, for Him to pay a ransom, not of His enemies, but of His son! God’s own son is the price required to ransom us from the empty life we would otherwise have. What an honor! What love!

⁸But God showed his great love for us by sending Christ to die for us while we were still sinners. ⁹And since we have been made right in God’s sight by the blood of Christ, he will certainly save us from God’s judgment. ¹⁰For since we were restored to friendship with God by the death of his Son while we were still his enemies, we will certainly be delivered from eternal punishment by his life. ¹¹So now we can rejoice in our wonderful new relationship with God – all because of what our Lord Jesus Christ has done for us in making us friends of God.
                                               Romans 5:8-11 (NLT)

God has ransomed us through Jesus Christ. Praise God! He has delivered us from eternal punishment to eternal life!

¹¹And this is the testimony: God has given us eternal life, and this life is in his Son. ¹²He who has the Son has life; he who does not have the Son of God does not have life.
                                               1 John 5:11-12 (NIV)

I hope you have the Son! Because being in the center of God’s love is life!

How good are you? Let’s draw a scale to represent “goodness.” We’ll put God at the top of the scale. Scripture says that He is perfect in all His ways and that His goodness knows no bounds. He is the pinnacle of goodness.

Now where would you put yourself on the scale? Well, before you try to figure that out, let’s pick an easier one. Where would you put Mother Theresa on the scale? I’m guessing pretty close to the top. How about Hitler or Jeffrey Dahmer, the serial killer and cannibal? Pretty close to the bottom I’d guess. Think of some other people you know and imagine where they would be on the scale. Now, where would you put yourself on the scale?

I’d put myself a little above the half way mark. I’m a little more good than bad, but I have a long way to go before I even approach God’s goodness. And that’s the point of the scale. Everyone on the scale, whether they are Mother Theresa, Hitler or you or me, experiences a gap between God’s perfect goodness and where they live.  That gap is what the Bible calls sin – the word actually means “missing the mark” of God’s standard.

Let’s look at a verse from the Bible:

“For the wages of sin is death, but the free gift of God is eternal life through Christ Jesus our Lord.”
            Romans 6:23

This verse tells us a lot about that gap between us and God’s moral standard. Let’s look at some key words:

Wages — What we earn for something we do.
Sin — As I said above, it’s missing the mark of God’s standard. In this verse it’s what we’ve done to earn our wages.
Death — That’s what our wages are!

…in other words, we’ve earned death by sinning. Not a great wage, I’d say, but then it wasn’t a great work we did to earn it!

Gift — It’s something we receive for doing nothing – the exact opposite of wages!
God — The gift comes from God, it isn’t the result of our own actions.
Life — God’s gift is life, both now and throughout eternity. It is the exact opposite of death!

…in other words, the gift God offers to us is eternal life. It’s a pretty great gift that we cannot earn but we can surely accept.

Through Christ Jesus — Hmmm…God gives the gift, but it had to be paid for by someone. It’s a gift to us, so we don’t pay for it. This verse tells us that Jesus paid for it. We’ve already seen that the price, the wages, is death. So when Christ died on the cross, He was paying the price for our sins.

Our Lord — These two words explain how we receive God’s gift – by making Jesus Christ our Lord, by choosing to let Him be the leader of our lives.

The gap on our scale between where God is and where we are represents our sin.  Turn the scale on it’s side and you’ll see us on one side and God on the other. The gap between us and God represents our sin and the wages we’ve earned for that sin is our death. Praise God that He sent Christ, who willingly accepted those wages on our behalf! The free gift God offers to bridge the gap between us is the death of Christ. When we accept that gift by recognizing His leadership in our lives, we are reconciled to God – give life now and throughout eternity.

Are you reconciled to God? Or are you choosing to live your life your own way, earning the wages of death? Accepting God’s gift of eternal life is easy. It means agreeing with God – that you don’t meet His standards – that you have sinned and therefore earned death, and then choosing to accept His free gift of eternal life by following Jesus – by living your life and making your decisions based on His leadership.

It’s that easy…and that hard. Easy because all that’s required is talking to God conversationally and asking him to forgive you for choosing sin and telling Him that you want to choose life by following Jesus. Hard because it means choosing to let God be the Lord of your life. Fortunately, it’s a process. You won’t totally change overnight, but your thoughts and desires will begin to change and that change will increase exponentially you spend time with God by praying more and beginning to read the Bible. Try it! It means life…now and forever.

If you’ve made this decision for the first time, please e-mail me at sandy@ApprehendingGrace.com. I’ll help you get off to a good start in your new life with Christ.

Many people love the book of John. It has never been my favorite. Today, the first chapter of John came alive to me as I read it. Other Scriptures flooded my mind to amplify each paragraph. I thought I’d share it with you. I hope you enjoy this amplification of John 1 through other Scriptures. All Scriptures are from the New Living Translation of the Bible.

John 1:1-5
¹In the beginning the Word already existed. He was with God, and he was God. ²He was in the beginning with God. ³He created everything there is. Nothing exists that he didn’t make. ⁴Life itself was in him, and this life gives light to everyone. ⁵The light shines through the darkness, and the darkness can never extinguish it.

Genesis 1:1-3
¹In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth. ²The earth was empty, a formless mass cloaked in darkness. And the Spirit of God was hovering over its surface. ³Then God said [spoke the words], “Let there be light,” and there was light. 

John 1:6-9
⁶God sent John the Baptist ⁷to tell everyone about the light so that everyone might believe because of his testimony. ⁸John himself was not the light; he was only a witness to the light. ⁹The one who is the true light, who gives light to everyone, was going to come into the world.

John 8:12
¹²Jesus said to the people, ”I am the light of the world. If you follow me, you won’t be stumbling through the darkness, because you will have the light that leads to life.”

John 1:10-13
¹⁰But although the world was made through him, the world didn’t recognize him when he came. ¹¹Even in his own land and among his own people, he was not accepted. ¹²But to all who believed him and accepted him, he gave the right to become children of God. ¹³They are reborn! This is not a physical birth resulting from human passion or plan-this rebirth comes from God.

John 3:1-8
¹After dark one evening, a Jewish religious leader named Nicodemus, a Pharisee, ²came to speak with Jesus. “Teacher,” he said, “we all know that God has sent you to teach us. Your miraculous signs are proof enough that God is with you.”

³Jesus replied, ”I assure you, unless you are born again, you can never see the Kingdom of God.”

⁴“What do you mean?” exclaimed Nicodemus. “How can an old man go back into his mother’s womb and be born again?”

⁵Jesus replied, ”The truth is, no one can enter the Kingdom of God without being born of water and the Spirit. ⁶Humans can reproduce only human life, but the Holy Spirit gives new life from heaven. ⁷So don’t be surprised at my statement that you must be born again. ⁸Just as you can hear the wind but can’t tell where it comes from or where it is going, so you can’t explain how people are born of the Spirit.”

John 1:14a
¹⁴So the Word became human and lived here on earth among us…

Luke 1:26-37
²⁶In the sixth month of Elizabeth’s pregnancy, God sent the angel Gabriel to Nazareth, a village in Galilee, ²⁷to a virgin named Mary. She was engaged to be married to a man named Joseph, a descendant of King David. ²⁸Gabriel appeared to her and said, “Greetings, favored woman! The Lord is with you!”

²⁹Confused and disturbed, Mary tried to think what the angel could mean. ³⁰“Don’t be frightened, Mary,” the angel told her, “for God has decided to bless you! ³¹You will become pregnant and have a son, and you are to name him Jesus. ³²He will be very great and will be called the Son of the Most High. And the Lord God will give him the throne of his ancestor David. ³³And he will reign over Israel forever; his Kingdom will never end!”

³⁴Mary asked the angel, “But how can I have a baby? I am a virgin.”

³⁵The angel replied, “The Holy Spirit will come upon you, and the power of the Most High will overshadow you. So the baby born to you will be holy, and he will be called the Son of God. ³⁶What’s more, your relative Elizabeth has become pregnant in her old age! People used to say she was barren, but she’s already in her sixth month. ³⁷For nothing is impossible with God.”

Luke 2:6-7
⁶And while they were there, the time came for her baby to be born. ⁷She gave birth to her first child, a son. She wrapped him snugly in strips of cloth and laid him in a manger, because there was no room for them in the village inn.

John 1:14b
¹⁴…He was full of unfailing love and faithfulness. …

John 15:9-17 (Jesus is speaking)
⁹“I have loved you even as the Father has loved me. Remain in my love. ¹⁰When you obey me, you remain in my love, just as I obey my Father and remain in his love. ¹¹I have told you this so that you will be filled with my joy. Yes, your joy will overflow! ¹²I command you to love each other in the same way that I love you. ¹³And here is how to measure it – the greatest love is shown when people lay down their lives for their friends. ¹⁴You are my friends if you obey me. ¹⁵I no longer call you servants, because a master doesn’t confide in his servants. Now you are my friends, since I have told you everything the Father told me. ¹⁶You didn’t choose me. I chose you. I appointed you to go and produce fruit that will last, so that the Father will give you whatever you ask for, using my name. ¹⁷I command you to love each other.

John 1:14c-15
¹⁴…And we have seen his glory, the glory of the only Son of the Father.

¹⁵John pointed him out to the people. He shouted to the crowds, “This is the one I was talking about when I said, ‘someone is coming who is far greater than I am, for he existed long before I did.’”

John 1:1-2
¹In the beginning the Word already existed. He was with God, and he was God. ²He was in the beginning with God. 

John 1:16-18 
¹⁶We have all benefited from the rich blessings he brought to us – one gracious blessing after another. ¹⁷For the law was given through Moses; God’s unfailing love and faithfulness came through Jesus Christ. ¹⁸No one has ever seen God. But his only Son, who is himself God, is near to the Father’s heart; he has told us about him.

John 14:1-11a
¹“Don’t be troubled. You trust God, now trust in me. ²There are many rooms in my Father’s home, and I am going to prepare a place for you. If this were not so, I would tell you plainly. ³When everything is ready, I will come and get you, so that you will always be with me where I am. ⁴And you know where I am going and how to get there.”

⁵“No, we don’t know, Lord,” Thomas said. “We haven’t any idea where you are going, so how can we know the way?”

⁶Jesus told him, ”I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one can come to the Father except through me. ⁷If you had known who I am, then you would have known who my Father is. From now on you know him and have seen him!”

⁸Philip said, “Lord, show us the Father and we will be satisfied.”

⁹Jesus replied, ”Philip, don’t you even yet know who I am, even after all the time I have been with you? Anyone who has seen me has seen the Father! So why are you asking to see him? ¹⁰Don’t you believe that I am in the Father and the Father is in me? The words I say are not my own, but my Father who lives in me does his work through me. ¹¹Just believe that I am in the Father and the Father is in me.

Romans 5:6-11
⁶When we were utterly helpless, Christ came at just the right time and died for us sinners. ⁷Now, no one is likely to die for a good person, though someone might be willing to die for a person who is especially good. ⁸But God showed his great love for us by sending Christ to die for us while we were still sinners. ⁹And since we have been made right in God’s sight by the blood of Christ, he will certainly save us from God’s judgment. ¹⁰For since we were restored to friendship with God by the death of his Son while we were still his enemies, we will certainly be delivered from eternal punishment by his life. ¹¹So now we can rejoice in our wonderful new relationship with God-all because of what our Lord Jesus Christ has done for us in making us friends of God.