Sometimes when I am working on the Bible studies, I can get caught up in what I had read earlier and change course a bit. Last week we looked at Isaiah and the prophesy of Jesus’s birth. Then you go read comments on the Bible study and go "oh wow that was a great response, lets talk about that more.” Cindy talked about sin leading up to this moment. Adam and Eve were to live the perfect life, everything was set in motion for that to happen. But because of Adam and Eve’s’ sin, there would have to be a counterbalance. Think of how bad and corrupt the World had gotten In the old testament, for God to wipe out mankind with a flood, and only allow few to continue on. I do not think we take sin as seriously as we should. Of course, we will always fall short. (Romans 3:23 "for all have sinned, and come short of the glory of God;” ) It is pretty serious to God. Think of when the Ten Commandments were given to Moses, and God started to tell Moses the sacrifices that were to be made for sin. The Ten Commandments were given to show that everyone has sin in their life. (John 15:10 If ye keep my commandments, ye shall abide in my love; even as I have kept my Father's commandments, and abide in his love.) They were given to us to strive for perfection. (Matthew 5:48 Be ye therefore perfect, even as your Father which is in heaven is perfect.) In Matthew 5 Jesus is telling to be perfect. Read the whole chapter, it is from the sermon on the mount he gave. It explains how to be perfect. Let’s go back now, God new it would almost be impossible for man to be able to keep the commandments, but for them to strive for. So, there would have to be a one-time solution, and that would be for His own Son to come to the earth and go through everything man has to go through, from infancy to adulthood, to live the perfect life, to be an example, only to be sacrifice for "our shortfalls”.
It is all about us! Jesus’ birth is all about us. Jesus does not want a celebration about Him. He never asked anyone to prop Him up. His life was not about Him, it was about us. The things God did was only about bringing us closer to Him, and it had caused Him to do drastic things to get His point across of His love for us. Yet we are still falling short of expectations already knowing what He has done. I believe this time of year we should be more in the forgiveness mind set instead of celebrating the birth of a person who will eventually have to die the most gruesome death to atone for our bad behavior. Do not get me wrong, I am not saying for us to not celebrate Christmas, but to possibly have a different attitude of what we are celebrating. (Luke 2:13-14 And suddenly there was with the angel a multitude of the heavenly host praising God, and saying, Glory to God in the highest, And on earth peace, good will toward men.) That is what happened after the angel tell the shepherds about the birth of Jesus. They were praising God, man’s forgiveness has now come to earth. The hosts of Heaven were praising God, they were so full of Joy that "we” now had a chance to be with God. Think about that for a moment. Let that set in. When I say it is about us, I do not mean that in a prideful way, but more of, "WE NEEDED HELP!” We have to stay humble and understanding we are hopeless with out God.
When I see manger scenes this time of year, I realize how much of a sinner I am for God to bring His Son to come be a sacrifice for me. He would have to bear my sins for me. This Christmas season, we will celebrate the birth of Jesus, but let this be a reminder that this birth is about us to be redeemed of our sins. Let us not forget what this means. We need to be asking forgiveness, for we brought this to come to pass. It is because of our sin and God’s love for us Jesus is born.
John 3:16-17 For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life. For God sent not his Son into the world to condemn the world; but that the world through him might be saved.
Psalm 25:11 For thy name's sake, O LORD , Pardon mine iniquity; for it is great.
Psalm 41:4 I said, LORD , be merciful unto me: Heal my soul; for I have sinned against thee.
Psalm 51:1 Have mercy upon me, O God, according to thy lovingkindness: According unto the multitude of thy tender mercies blot out my transgressions.
COMMENTS
[ posted by Cindy, 12/19/2023 01:10 PM ]
I thought my comment would be short today. But it won't be. lolForgiveness can be defined as this: to grant for remission of an offense, debt, etc to give up all claim of something to grant a pardon to a person to cease a feeling of resentment to stop being angry at someone It is hard for us to extend forgiveness when we are wronged. We all know how that feels. Sometimes it's deserved or expected, other times for no reason. It is commanded for us to forgive others. If we can't forgive others, how can we expect God to forgive us? God gives us grace and mercy every single day because we are sinners and He loves us. When we forgive others, we show our faith and obedience to God and that commandment. (Luke 11:4 Forgive our sins, and the sins of others against us.) Would we want God to hold a grudge against us for our sins? The Old Testament days were rough, God just wiped out people and places. Smited them. Sin was that bad. Sin is much more worse today throughout the world He created for us. Every sin committed, I believe God grieves over. Yet, he still loved us so much He decided not to destroy parts of His creation over and over again that He wanted to be able to let us know how much He loves us, forgives us and wants us to be with Him. Or He never would have sent Jesus to be born, and then die for us and our sinful ways. We only know the pain of our own sins and the sins committed against us....What was Jesus' pain? The immense volume of sin He suffered for the world that was, and the sins of the world that would come to be until He returned? If we sinned only 4 times a day let's say starting at age 12. That's 120 sins a month (am using just 30 day months to make it easy), thats 1440 sins a year. If you live to age 75...that's 63 years of sins to = about 90, 720 sins in your life. (That's just if you sin only 4 times a day) Multiply that times the world populations, past and present. That's pretty serious when its put down like that!!!! A sin is a sin is a sin. A big sin is equal to a small sin in God's eyes. That's why we needed a Savior!!!! No one could forgive the volume of a man's sins except a God like ours! An angel told Joseph Matt 1:21 " you shall call him Jesus, for he will save his people from their sins" The angels declared to the sheperds at Jesus' birth...Luke 2:11 " For unto you is born...a Savior...He shall save His people" And they rejoiced! Why? Because now man and his sin could be forgiven and he had free will to choose to be with God. The birth of Jesus is all about US!!! God and His heavenly host were happy when we were created. We were perfect....until sin. Adam and Eve are not the first comitters of sin. The devil was. A proud angel of God who was so beautiful he wanted to be like God. He rebelled and convinced a third of the host of heaven to rebel also, and were then cast out of heaven. It's been his job since then to promote sin, hate, perversions, chaos etc for mankind. If Eve, who was created to be perfect by God, could fall for that serpent....you can see how we were all doomed eternally. If you have committed a sin, you have to be redeemed of it. You need a redeemer. Jesus being born was a covenant with God for mankind's redemption of sin. Jesus was the only path to forgiveness and redemption. Micah 7:19 says" the Lord will have compassion on us; He will vanquish our iniquities.... all our sins cast into the depths of the sea. He still has that for us today. Those numbers I quoted above about sins in a lifetime.....do we deserve that much forgiveness? If God can keep forgiving us over and over, so must we be forgiving unto others over and over. Eph 4:32 and Col 3:13 talk about how we are to forgive others. That's why if God is so gracious and loving to forgive us over and over, we have to forgive others. God can't be forgiving to us, if His creation can't be forgiving to others. In Matt 18: 21-22 we are to forgive without limitation...just as God does for us. Rom 12:14 "bless those who persecute you" Bless and forgive your wrong doers. Just as our God blesses and forgives us for our wrongdoings. So the birth is about the celebration of Jesus coming to earth and being born. The purpose of His divine birth was about US. Saving US. Redeeming US. Because we are sinful. Without the birth of Christ,we would be lost eternally. That baby laying in a manger would suffer horribly later for US. Die for US. Defeat death and the devil for US. For you. For me. He was the ONLY one who could bring US into the presence of God and show US to be blameless and rejoice with US. We didn't deserve a Savior being born. We didn't deserve deliverance from all our sins. Someone else loved US enough to give that to US. That is what Christmas is about.