Who is God? All hail the power... (part 14)

Christ is My Brother, my Savior, and the One Who wants to present me spotless before His Father. At the same time, this is the Father. That Son of God that came down to earth is God incarnate. His Name is Emanuel. (I love that hymn, “O Come O Come Emanuel”) Emanuel means God walks with us. Jesus came so that we could see what it was God wanted us, me, my ancestors, my friends, my associates, those that worship in the pew with me, those that came long long time before, what God wants us to do. Jesus came that we would know His will. What is really interesting about the bible is that God gives us a physical genealogy so that we can actually pinpoint that Jesus did indeed exist, this is His lineage and look indeed He comes from Adam. So He is a man, like us, but because He was placed in the womb of Mary by God He is God. And that is the mystery. He is God, He is the Son of God. And as spoken of in John 10:6, Jesus is the light, the example, the way, the truth and the life.. He first learned obedience as the Hebrews writer says, then He was baptized to further display this obedience to God and as a pledge of good conscience. And also to give us an example of the seed dying and some new being taking its place as well as a death, burial, and resurrection that would come at the cross later. (Romans 5 and 6). Jesus always said, “Yes, God” even though He may ask God to think of something else. It was always His Will. Then Luke in Luke 3:1-38 gives us Christ’s genealogy. God knows that I need, that all human beings need, tangibles, and He gave it to us. Christ is my ancestor, my King, My Lord and God.

Who is God? All hail the power....(part 13)

He came for me and others who came to know what it feels like to make God cry, to hurt Him, and who are truly sorry for what they have done to Him. He came that I might be saved, that all might be saved, that the broken relationships that occur because of our ignorance, our lack of desire to do right, or our selfishness. He came to provide a way to make us whole. It begins with baptism. Baptism is not an end: it is a beginning. Baptism is the result of one’s realization that one is a sinner and will perish without God’s grace, and that Jesus is the way to salvation. Does that mean mere belief? No, it means much more than that. It means acting out the belief that Christ came to bring peace to an otherwise war-torn humanity. The only way to peace is realizing that God is the One and Only God and the true Savior is His Son, Who being a part of God brings us His Word, and is God walking with us. Why? He cares so much for me He wants me in that relationship with Him. Can John the Baptist save me? No, His baptism was for repentance and changing the way of acting, from meanness to kindness, from extortion to fairness and justice. But those people didn’t understand why they were getting baptized, all they knew is that they had to change. The only baptism that will bring peace to my relationship with God is baptism in Christ, participating in His life, living up to the fact that God created me in His image, as He did Adam and Eve. The only way to do that is to humbly follow Christ.

Who is God? All hail the power... (part 12)

The whole basis of the Lord’s Supper, the whole reason for being, is the remembrance of Who Christ was. Not just the sacrifice, although He was the sacrificial Lamb, but also His covenant that according to Galatians 3:15, 17 that was new, a spiritual covenant, the one that would transcend the fleshly bounds. In making this covenant, He knew Judas would betray Him, people would lie against Him, beat Him, deny Him, especially Peter, and then leave Him, especially His own people except for John who stayed with Him until the last. And He knew that God had something for Him, and He never forgot that Father, even though He prayed that it would be taken from Him. The will of the Father was foremost in mind, and that is what Jesus wants me to remember. That the idea behind sharing a meal with Him is the fulfillment of a promise that came down from Genesis 3, all through the time of Moses and David and Solomon and the division of the Kingdom of Israel and the destruction of the first Temple and rebuilding of the Temple until the days of Christ and the fulfillment that Judah itself was going to be destroyed. It is the fulfillment of the promise of the power of God. God’s power, as spoken of in Romans 1:16-17 can overcome the fact that I do mean and malicious things, because God can change me such that I don’t do those things anymore. God’s power can change the way I think, because His power guided by His will raised a man from the dead three days after He was buried. Luke 22:3-31 gives a good account of the Lord’s Supper, as does John chapters 13 through 17. It is a celebration of Christ being resurrected. Jesus Christ is risen today, I remember singing, Halleluiah. Halleluiah, Christ is risen. And so the cross becomes at once sorrowful and yet exciting. I am excited Christ went to the cross for me because it means He loves me so much that He would die for me. I am saddened at His suffering because of my sins, but I am amazed and overjoyed that He would sacrifice all that He had just that I might be with Him as part of His bride, when He is ready to present me to His Father. And I pray that when He is ready to present me, that I am ready. But that is why He came to earth too, isn’t it?

 

Who is God? All Hail the power... (part 11)

And Jesus tells me to follow God, follow and listen to His voice. Every other god is false, just as the hired man in the parable of the shepherd calling his sheep. (John 10: 9-10) No one knows me like God. No one can touch me like God. God knows all, is above all, and is within the church and above it, waiting for me to come to Him as part of Christ’s bride. (Ps 46:1-5). Is this why Jesus came? Didn’t He come to earth to be a warrior, a rider on a white horse to swoop down and save His people? According to Ezekiel 34:23-31, “And I will set up one shepherd over them, and he shall feed them even my servant David; he shall feed them, and he shall be their shepherd. And I the LORD will be their God, and my servant David a prince among them, I the LORD have spoken it. And I will make a covenant of peace, and will cause the evil beasts to cease, out of the land:  and they shall dwell safely in the wilderness and sleep in the woods; And I will make them and the place round about my hill a blessing; and I will cause the shower to come down in his season; there shall be showers of blessing. And the tree of the field shall yield her fruit, and they shall be safe in their land, and shall know that I am the LORD, when I have broken the bands of their yoke and delivered them out of the hand of those that served themselves of them. And they shall no more be a prey to the heathen, neither shall the beast of the land devour them; but they shall dwell safely, and none shall make them afraid. And I will raise up for them a plant of renown, and they shall be no more consumed with hunger in the land, neither bear the shame of heathen any more. Thus they shall know that I the LORD their God am with them, and that they, even the house of Israel, are my people, saith the LORD God. And ye my flock, the flock of my pasture, are men, and I am your God, saith the LORD God.” That doesn’t sound like a warrior, but someone who will be peace-loving and kind and nurturing. He came so that there would be no more hatred and there will be no more pain. Jesus showed us the way there. Further in Ezekiel, in chapter 47 verses 11and 12, there is a description of a river that heals and quenches every thirst and takes evil, turning it to dross, so that only good survives. This is mindful of John 4, in which Christ talks to the woman at the well about the fountain that provides water and those that drink of it shall never die. In Him His bride shall never die. This also doesn’t sound like a warrior. No He came in peace. And He came for unity, as Micah 5:2-15. He came so that I and the person sitting next to me at church, or even in the next line at the checkout counter, those that are my neighbors, those I work with, He came for all of us, so that we may focus on God, and doing His will, not what pleases us or uplifts us or puts us on a high. He is powerful in the respect that He can stay the sea, and wither the fig. But He wishes us to be reunited and conjoined to Him in peace and joy and He promises to look after us with that joy and with singing. (Zephaniah 3:9-20)