Christmas Time

God with us

It is Christmas time and we are thinking of Jesus’ birthday and the story about God becoming a human. His name is Emanuel for He really is God with us. With us here and now is not just a saying it is real, He is with us.

The mystery of the coming is  "How could God Become a Man?" In the beginning this same God made Adam as a full-grown mature man in the likeness of God, able to think and do and act and want and decide all by himself. But now at Christmas time we see a baby unable to even speak, dependent on his mother and others for everything except breathing. How different from the adult mature first Adam!

Jesus as a baby was also in danger of being killed by Herod. And again unlike the first Adam, this One whom the Bible calls the last Adam, had to learn everything before He became as mature as Adam. He learned obedience to his parents, he learned to speak and play with and get along with younger siblings and even little sisters as different as they are. As a human he grew up and matured in the same way that we do except that He was never inclined to do wrong, He never sinned. The Bible says He was tempted in every way just as we are and yet He was without sin. Actually He did not inherit sinfulness as we did from our fathers, for only God Himself was His father, that is what the virgin birth means, although his brothers and sisters who had Joseph for their father were sinners needing a Saviour.

Imagine it, yes realize it and believe it. Jesus is God and He experienced all the temptations you and I have experienced yet He never sinned. Then He became the sinless sacrifice for all our sins so that He could be God with us and we can be with Him for ever. Salvation by his grace alone. And not just salvation from the penalty of sin, but because He was tempted and sinless we can live and overcome sin each day like He did, free from the power of sin.

Hebrews 4:15 For we have not an high priest which cannot be touched with the feeling of our infirmities; but was in all points tempted like as we are, yet without sin. 1 Timothy 3:15 And without controversy great is the mystery of godliness: God was manifest in the flesh, justified in the Spirit, seen of angels, preached unto the Gentiles, believed on in the world, received up into glory.

Psalm 14

Psalm 11

Ps 14:1 The fool has said in his heart, "There is no God." They are corrupt, they have committed abominable deeds; There is no one who does good.
Ps 14:2 The LORD has looked down from heaven upon the sons of men To see if there are any who understand, Who seek after God.
Ps 14:3 They have all turned aside, together they have become corrupt; There is no one who does good, not even one.
Ps 14:4  Do all the workers of wickedness not know, Who eat up my people {as} they eat bread, {And} do not call upon the Lord?
Ps 14:5 There they are in great dread, For God is with the righteous generation.
Ps 14:6 You would put to shame the counsel of the afflicted, But the LORD is his refuge.
Ps 14:7  Oh, that the salvation of Israel would come out of Zion! When the LORD restores His captive people, Jacob will rejoice, Israel will be glad.

We use the word fool in talking about someone who fools others or who is fooled himself. In either case the ideas he proposes are not reasonable, they will not stand up. The fool here denies the existence of God, denying that there is anything good to be said about Him. In denying God he is denying that there is any good except himself, but the sentence is against himself, for the end of the first verse says that there is no one who does good. And it is the Creator Himself who looks down and makes the pronouncement. All have sinned against the goodness of God. We all need forgiveness.

Today the good news is that Jesus is calling all of us fools to repent and believe that there is a God who answers our prayer for safety in Jesus. And, yes, there will come a day when the mercy and grace of God is over and He will openly prove that He lives to restore His own nation Israel and Jerusalem to be the place where Jesus sits on the throne and rules both Israel and all the nations of the world. That will be the time of the golden age when everything is right and good because Jesus rules.