Merry Christmas!
Are you excited to celebrate Christmas? I am. Are you excited because you are getting presents? Are you excited because you are giving presents? Are you excited because you get to spend time with family and friends? All those things make Christmas exciting to me, but that is not as exciting to me than remembering to celebrate the greatest Christmas present of all time the birth of Jesus in Bethlehem over two-thousand years ago. It is His birth that brings me the greatest hope I have. Allow me to share with you about what I have learned about Christmas hope.
The Bible teaches me that Jesus was born of a virgin after being conceived by the Holy Spirit in a young woman named Mary. “And the angel answered her, ‘The Holy Spirit will come upon you, and the power of the Most High will overshadow you; therefore the child to be born will be called holy—the Son of God.’” Luke 1:35 (ESV) So, what does this mean to me.
- That Jesus was born by a direct action of God.
- No man was involved in this birth.
- Jesus is fully divine and fully human.
- Jesus is therefore without sin.
There are three reasons for these things to be true. Jesus had to be a man. He must also be an infinite man. He must be an innocent man. The virgin birth allows all three things to be true. My Pastor Troy Dobbs, Grace Church Eden Prairie, gave a message that goes into more details about the virgin birth.
The major purpose of the virgin birth is the sin nature of the human race. Each human born produces another sinner. It is because of Jesus’ virgin birth that Jesus could be without sin and therefore a perfect substitutional sacrifice for the sins of the world. It is because of this that Christmas brings me hope. It is because God chose to send His only Begotten Son to be born of a virgin, live a sinless life, die a sacrificial death on a cross, rise from the dead and is coming back for me and all those who believe in Jesus. If you have not already accepted God’s gift to you find out how here.
I pray you will join me in celebrating the real reason for Christmas. As we celebrate Christmas remembering that God loves us so much, He sent His Son Jesus Christ to restore our relationship with Him. Finally, know that God has something new every morning for us. It is these things that give us hope. Remember from past blogs that it is by knowing God that we have hope. The relationship with God through Jesus brings us hope in the present and the future. I would also encourage you to seek Jesus for He is the only opportunity there is to have eternal life. This is to me the greatest source of hope. In doing so, I believe we will have hope and joy during our everyday lives. Understanding that Jesus Christ allows us to access eternal life, “And this is eternal life, that they know you, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom you have sent.” John 17:3 (ESV) This will allow us to have hope. At the same time understanding you will live eternally knowing the only true God and Jesus Christ and this will bring you the greatest hope. Because of the death of Jesus Christ on the cross satisfied the penalty for sins. His payment satisfies all my sins from the past, the present and in the future. My penalty and yours was satisfied on the cross by the death of Jesus, God’s greatest act of love and wrath, who became sin for me and you. It was also God’s greatest act of faithfulness because “God shows his love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us.” Romans 5:8 (ESV) Because holiness shows us, we need to believe in Jesus. I hope that you join me in helping others to choose Jesus.
If you have not read my previous blogs, you can find them here.
You can watch book trailer about my book.
You can find my book, Hope Amid Hopelessness: Our Abba Father Provides a Way Through Mental Illness here.
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