Why He Came

 

 

 

One of the greatest mysteries of our Christian faith is that Jesus Christ, Son of God yet God Himself, the Fulness of the Godhead bodily (Colossians 2:9), present since before time began (John 1:1), the Creator of all (John 1:3), came to earth in human flesh and dwelt among us (John 1:14). Why did He come to us in this unique way? It will be incomprehensible until we see Him in glory, yet here are a few possibilities to consider:

He came to Seek and to Save: Jesus said that He came to seek and to save the lost (Luke 19:10). Sinners, certainly, lost and condemned to eternal death in hell without the salvation and eternal life only He can bring (John 3:16-18). But Jesus also sought out and restored those who had lost their health (Luke 8:43-48; Matthew 10:8), their sanity (Mark 5:15; Luke 8:35), the comfort of human relationships (John 4), and hope itself (Matthew 5:3-4).

Jesus sought His apostles, transforming them from simple, coarse fishermen and tradespeople to fishers of men (Matthew 4:18-22), to the first missionaries who would spread His Good News, first to the Jews and ultimately throughout the world (Matthew 28:19-20; Acts 1:8).

Praise God that He loved and sought us before we even knew Him (1 John 4:19), and that Christ knocked on the door of our heart until we answered Him (Revelation 3:20), transforming us from enemies of God (Romans 5:10) to joint heirs with Himself (Romans 8:17), becoming His friends and His ambassadors (2 Corinthians 5:20). Praise God that when Christ rose from the dead, He saved us from death, so that all who trust Him as their Savior also have eternal life (1 Corinthians 15:20-23).

He came to Sacrifice: Holy God cannot allow sinners into His presence unless they are made righteous in His sight and unless His just anger at our sin is appeased (Romans 3:22-26; 1 John 2:2; 4:10). Salvation is therefore only possible through the perfect, sinless sacrifice of Jesus Christ, the Lamb of God Who takes away the sins of the world (John 1:29,36). In His perfection, He submitted to crucifixion and willingly laid down His life as a sacrifice to pay for all of our sins, past, present and future (John 15:13; 1 John 3:16; Colossians 2:10-14). He took the punishment we deserved and paid our debt that He did not owe and that we could not pay (Isaiah 53:5).

He came to Substitute: In a transaction we will not fully understand until we reach glory, all of Christ’s righteousness is imputed or credited to our account, and all of our sin was debited against His account. When God the Father looks at those who have placed their faith in Christ’s death, burial and resurrection (1 Corinthians 15:1-4), He no longer sees our sins, but He sees only the perfect righteousness of His Son (Romans 4). 

He came to Submit: As the Word, Who created all, became flesh (John 1:3,14), He became the embodiment of submission to the Father’s will (Luke 22:42). He was born to a humble virgin betrothed to a carpenter of modest means (Matthew 1:18-23), and He entered this world in a lowly feeding trough among barnyard animals (Luke 2:7). In His human form He became the ideal example of putting God’s will before our own desires, trusting that God will work all things for our good and His glory (Romans 8:28).

Despite His infinite power, He submitted with meekness and humility to those in authority, knowing that God was in control and that His perfect will must be done (Matthew 26:52-54),. He came to fulfill the law, not to abolish it (Matthew 5:17-18), for in His sinless state He was the only man capable of keeping it. He knew that His teachings would bring division between His followers and the religious leaders of the day, resulting in persecution, yet He preached nonviolence (Matthew 5:38-39; 10:17-23; 34-39).

He came to Serve: Christ will return as Lord of Lords and King of Kings (1 Timothy 6:15; Revelation 17:14; 19:16), before Whom every knee will bow (Romans 14:11; Philippians 2:10). Yet in His first coming, He came as a servant, putting others first, even stooping to wash His apostles’ feet (John 13:4-15). If He could humble Himself in this way, how much more should we serve one another, and in so doing serve Him? In service as in all things, Jesus was the ideal of humanity in Whose footsteps we should follow.

He came to Suffer: Only by tasting our sadness, hurt, fatigue, hunger, cold, betrayal, and pain could Jesus identify with us in our suffering. When we approach His throne in prayer, we can have faith that He personally has experienced our need and has compassion for us in whatever trial we are enduring. He was like us in all ways, even tempted, and yet perfectly without sin (Hebrews 4:14-16).

He came to Show the Way: No man can directly look on God, and yet those who were blessed to see Jesus in His earthly ministry, and all of us who know Him through His recorded Word, know the Father, for Jesus and His Father are One (Matthew 11:27; Luke 10:22; John 8:19; 28-29). At the moment of our salvation, the Holy Spirit enters the believer’s heart (Ephesians 2:20-22), teaching us about Jesus, Who is the express image of the invisible God the Father (Hebrews 1:3). As He walked the earth, He taught us how to live, to be born again (John 3:3-8), and to have faith (John 20:29). Jesus is the only Way to the Father, to forgiveness of sins, and to everlasting life (John 14:6).

He came to Set up the Kingdom: Jesus was the promised Messiah, as foretold in Old Testament prophecy (Isaiah 9:6-7), to deliver the nation of Israel (Romans 11:26). In His Second Coming He will rule in the Millennial Kingdom on the throne of David (1 Kings 2:33,45; 9:5; Luke 1:32). Yet in His first coming, when His ministry was directed primarily to the Jews (Matthew 10:5-7) His chosen Hebrew people not only rejected Him, but crucified Him (Zechariah 12:9-10; Revelation 12:5; Matthew 23:37-39).

Surely this was no surprise to God, Who in His omniscience and foreknowledge has known since the beginning of time who would accept and who would reject His Son, yet without interfering with our free will (Romans 8:29).

So why did God allow this? In His infinite grace and mercy, this delay in setting the King of Kings on the throne of Israel allowed the Gentiles to be grafted in to God’s family (Ephesians 2:11-20), so that whosoever would accept Christ would become children of God and inherit eternal life (Acts 2:21; Romans 10:13). Praise God that Jesus came to us to allow this wondrous plan, and may we be ready when He comes again, meeting us face to face in all His glory!

© 2013 Laurie Collett

Reposted from the archives

Why He Came

 

 

One of the greatest mysteries of our Christian faith is that Jesus Christ, Son of God yet God Himself, the Fulness of the Godhead bodily (Colossians 2:9), present since before time began (John 1:1), the Creator of all (John 1:3), came to earth in human flesh and dwelt among us (John 1:14). Why did He come to us in this unique way? It will be incomprehensible until we see Him in glory, yet here are a few possibilities to consider:

He came to Seek and to Save: Jesus said that He came to seek and to save the lost (Luke 19:10). Sinners, certainly, lost and condemned to eternal death in hell without the salvation and eternal life only He can bring (John 3:16-18). But Jesus also sought out and restored those who had lost their health (Luke 8:43-48; Matthew 10:8), their sanity (Mark 5:15; Luke 8:35), the comfort of human relationships (John 4), and hope itself (Matthew 5:3-4).

Jesus sought His apostles, transforming them from simple, coarse fishermen and tradespeople to fishers of men (Matthew 4:18-22), to the first missionaries who would spread His Good News, first to the Jews and ultimately throughout the world (Matthew 28:19-20; Acts 1:8).

Praise God that He loved and sought us before we even knew Him (1 John 4:19), and that Christ knocked on the door of our heart until we answered Him (Revelation 3:20), transforming us from enemies of God (Romans 5:10) to joint heirs with Himself (Romans 8:17), becoming His friends and His ambassadors (2 Corinthians 5:20). Praise God that when Christ rose from the dead, He saved us from death, so that all who trust Him as their Savior also have eternal life (1 Corinthians 15:20-23).

He came to Sacrifice: Holy God cannot allow sinners into His presence unless they are made righteous in His sight and unless His just anger at our sin is appeased (Romans 3:22-26; 1 John 2:2; 4:10). Salvation is therefore only possible through the perfect, sinless sacrifice of Jesus Christ, the Lamb of God Who takes away the sins of the world (John 1:29,36). In His perfection, He submitted to crucifixion and willingly laid down His life as a sacrifice to pay for all of our sins, past, present and future (John 15:13; 1 John 3:16; Colossians 2:10-14). He took the punishment we deserved and paid our debt that He did not owe and that we could not pay (Isaiah 53:5).

He came to Substitute: In a transaction we will not fully understand until we reach glory, all of Christ’s righteousness is imputed or credited to our account, and all of our sin was debited against His account. When God the Father looks at those who have placed their faith in Christ’s death, burial and resurrection (1 Corinthians 15:1-4), He no longer sees our sins, but He sees only the perfect righteousness of His Son (Romans 4). 

He came to Submit: As the Word, Who created all, became flesh (John 1:3,14), He became the embodiment of submission to the Father’s will (Luke 22:42). He was born to a humble virgin betrothed to a carpenter of modest means (Matthew 1:18-23), and He entered this world in a lowly feeding trough among barnyard animals (Luke 2:7). In His human form He became the ideal example of putting God’s will before our own desires, trusting that God will work all things for our good and His glory (Romans 8:28).

Despite His infinite power, He submitted with meekness and humility to those in authority, knowing that God was in control and that His perfect will must be done (Matthew 26:52-54),. He came to fulfill the law, not to abolish it (Matthew 5:17-18), for in His sinless state He was the only man capable of keeping it. He knew that His teachings would bring division between His followers and the religious leaders of the day, resulting in persecution, yet He preached nonviolence (Matthew 5:38-39; 10:17-23; 34-39).

He came to Serve: Christ will return as Lord of Lords and King of Kings (1 Timothy 6:15; Revelation 17:14; 19:16), before Whom every knee will bow (Romans 14:11; Philippians 2:10). Yet in His first coming, He came as a servant, putting others first, even stooping to wash His apostles’ feet (John 13:4-15). If He could humble Himself in this way, how much more should we serve one another, and in so doing serve Him? In service as in all things, Jesus was the ideal of humanity in Whose footsteps we should follow.

He came to Suffer: Only by tasting our sadness, hurt, fatigue, hunger, cold, betrayal, and pain could Jesus identify with us in our suffering. When we approach His throne in prayer, we can have faith that He personally has experienced our need and has compassion for us in whatever trial we are enduring. He was like us in all ways, even tempted, and yet perfectly without sin (Hebrews 4:14-16).

He came to Show the Way: No man can directly look on God, and yet those who were blessed to see Jesus in His earthly ministry, and all of us who know Him through His recorded Word, know the Father, for Jesus and His Father are One (Matthew 11:27; Luke 10:22; John 8:19; 28-29). At the moment of our salvation, the Holy Spirit enters the believer’s heart (Ephesians 2:20-22), teaching us about Jesus, Who is the express image of the invisible God the Father (Hebrews 1:3). As He walked the earth, He taught us how to live, to be born again (John 3:3-8), and to have faith (John 20:29). Jesus is the only Way to the Father, to forgiveness of sins, and to everlasting life (John 14:6).

He came to Set up the Kingdom: Jesus was the promised Messiah, as foretold in Old Testament prophecy (Isaiah 9:6-7), to deliver the nation of Israel (Romans 11:26). In His Second Coming He will rule in the Millennial Kingdom on the throne of David (1 Kings 2:33,45; 9:5; Luke 1:32). Yet in His first coming, when His ministry was directed primarily to the Jews (Matthew 10:5-7) His chosen Hebrew people not only rejected Him, but crucified Him (Zechariah 12:9-10; Revelation 12:5; Matthew 23:37-39).

Surely this was no surprise to God, Who in His omniscience and foreknowledge has known since the beginning of time who would accept and who would reject His Son, yet without interfering with our free will (Romans 8:29).

So why did God allow this? In His infinite grace and mercy, this delay in setting the King of Kings on the throne of Israel allowed the Gentiles to be grafted in to God’s family (Ephesians 2:11-20), so that whosoever would accept Christ would become children of God and inherit eternal life (Acts 2:21; Romans 10:13). Praise God that Jesus came to us to allow this wondrous plan, and may we be ready when He comes again, meeting us face to face in all His glory!

© 2013 Laurie Collett

Reposted from the archives

The Infant, or the Kitten?

Photo by Mehregan Javanmard

In 1882, Frank R. Stockton wrote a famous short story, “The Lady, or the Tiger?” about a convicted man who had to choose between two doors. One door led to freedom and marriage to a beautiful maiden, and the other to cruel death by a ravenous tiger. I had a dream recently in which I was faced with an equally life-changing decision.

In the dream, I was living in a strange country far from home. I had no provisions for my stay, but I heard that the ruler was giving away special gifts uniquely suited to each recipient. I lined up with many others to receive my gift, and one by one we were seated in small cabins ascending into the sky, like a ski lift.

When my seat reached the platform where an official was distributing gifts, I was shocked when he placed an infant in my arms. I had hoped for money, or a job, or a house, or some other way to sustain myself in this foreign land, and here I was with another mouth to feed!

But as soon as I held him I felt an unaccustomed sense of peace, hope, and awe at his perfect composure and regal bearing, so unexpected from such a young child. When he smiled, his eyes sparkled with sunbeams that lit the darkest recesses of my heart. Although I didn’t know how, I vowed that I would devote my life to caring for him.

As I held him on my knee he laughed with delight at various sights, drawing my attention to delicate flowers hidden along the path below, butterflies wafting on the breeze, a breathtaking waterfall that I would have missed otherwise. I had never before felt such joy or anticipation for the journey.

Suddenly I was distracted by a crawling sensation at my feet that made me shudder, and I feared that it might be a spider or even a tarantula. But to my surprise, on the floor of the cabin was a tiny white kitten, rubbing against my calves, wanting to be petted. I was concerned about the infant, but the kitten seemed so helpless and innocent that I reached down to stroke it.

Photo by Alicia Harvey 2007

With a plaintive “Meow” the creature leaped into my lap, still out of reach of the infant. But the baby fixed his eyes on me with a reproachful glance that cut through to my very soul, and my eyes filled with tears as I realized that I had betrayed him. The velvety skin on the pads of the kitten’s feet retracted suddenly to reveal cruel talons, and it pounced upward, clutching my throat.

I awoke in a panic, relieved that it was just a dream. Yet it got me thinking about the message our preacher gave last Sunday about the danger of letting sin creep into our life.

We are indeed strangers in a distant land, for our life on earth will be over in a flash (2 Corinthians 4:17). Then we will spend eternity in heaven or in hell, depending on whether or not we have been born again and trusted Jesus Christ as our Lord and Savior.

Life on earth is full of trouble (Job 14:1), with no promises even for tomorrow (James 4:13-15). The best gift anyone could ever receive while on earth is the gift of salvation, of placing your faith in the death, burial and resurrection of Jesus Christ as the only way to heaven (1 Corinthians 15:1-4; John 14:6). Not only does that guarantee your eternal life in heaven, but it gives you abundant life here and now (John 10:10).

Not only will God provide for your physical needs (Psalm 37:25), but He will bless you spiritually with joy in Him (Nehemiah 8:10; Isaiah 61:10; Philemon 1:20), peace that passes all understanding (Philippians 4:7), and faith that He is working all things together for our good and His glory (Romans 8:28).

The infant in my dream symbolized Jesus Christ, Who took on human flesh to come to earth as an Infant while retaining His divinity (John 1:14). He is all we need (2 Corinthians 12:9; Philippians 4:13). At the moment of salvation we are filled with joy, hope, and zeal to serve Him and to dedicate our lives to Him. If we remain faithful to that vow, we will be richly blessed by being in His perfect will (Romans 12:2).

But sadly, it is all too easy to let temptation creep into our lives, distracting our focus from Jesus. Why would we waste any of our time and energy on anything so clearly inferior to His perfection, especially when He promises us an escape from temptation? (1 Corinthians 10:13; 2 Peter 2:9)  If we yield to temptation it becomes sin – often a vicious cycle of sin compounded upon sin -- and the wages of sin is death (Luke 11:4; Romans 6:23).

If we have truly been born again (John 3:3-8), our salvation and eternal life in heaven are secure no matter what sins we commit (John 10:28-29), for His death on the cross paid for it all (1 John 2:2; 4:10). Yet sin inevitably results in other forms of death (Romans 5:12-21). Sin kills our testimony and effectiveness as ambassadors for Christ (2 Corinthians 5:20); it demolishes our fellowship with Him (Luke 15:18-21); and it ultimately destroys our physical body through injury, substance abuse, and/or illness.

The devil doesn’t cloak temptation in black robes and warn us with thunder and lightning bolts to stay away. Instead, he lures us in, disguising temptation in beauty appealing to our eyes, our flesh, or our pride (1 John 2:16). He may tempt us into evil plans and deeds through the sympathetic whisper of a “friend.” (2 Samuel 13).

Temptation may appear as innocent and harmless as a kitten, but if you accept its advances, it will ultimately turn on you and endanger your very life (Proverbs 7).  Samson (Judges 16:4-20), David (2 Samuel 11:1-15), and Solomon (1 Kings 11:4) all succumbed to lovely temptations, with disastrous results.

In the dream I was concerned about the infant, although not enough to resist the kitten. Yet it is not Christ Who is endangered by our sins, for He has forever conquered sin and death (Romans 5:12-21). We ourselves suffer the consequences of sin, not the least of which is the sadness of knowing we have quenched and grieved His Spirit (1 Thessalonians 5:19; Ephesians 4:30). 

Which will you choose, the Infant or the kitten? Eternal life and abundant life blessed by His fellowship and being in His perfect will, or the downward spiral of sin and death? The choice is yours. But thankfully, He provides all you need to make the right choice. 

© 2013 Laurie Collett
Reposted from the archives

 

Why He Came

One of the greatest mysteries of our Christian faith is that Jesus Christ, Son of God yet God Himself, the Fulness of the Godhead bodily (Colossians 2:9), present since before time began (John 1:1), the Creator of all (John 1:3), came to earth in human flesh and dwelt among us (John 1:14). Why did He come to us in this unique way? It will be incomprehensible until we see Him in glory, yet here are a few possibilities to consider:

He came to Seek and to Save: Jesus said that He came to seek and to save the lost (Luke 19:10). Sinners, certainly, lost and condemned to eternal death in hell without the salvation and eternal life only He can bring (John 3:16-18). But Jesus also sought out and restored those who had lost their health (Luke 8:43-48; Matthew 10:8), their sanity (Mark 5:15; Luke 8:35), the comfort of human relationships (John 4), and hope itself (Matthew 5:3-4).

Jesus sought His apostles, transforming them from simple, coarse fishermen and tradespeople to fishers of men (Matthew 4:18-22), to the first missionaries who would spread His Good News, first to the Jews and ultimately throughout the world (Matthew 28:19-20; Acts 1:8).

Praise God that He loved and sought us before we even knew Him (1 John 4:19), and that Christ knocked on the door of our heart until we answered Him (Revelation 3:20), transforming us from enemies of God (Romans 5:10) to joint heirs with Himself (Romans 8:17), becoming His friends and His ambassadors (2 Corinthians 5:20). Praise God that when Christ rose from the dead, He saved us from death, so that all who trust Him as their Savior also have eternal life (1 Corinthians 15:20-23).

He came to Sacrifice: Holy God cannot allow sinners into His presence unless they are made righteous in His sight and unless His just anger at our sin is appeased (Romans 3:22-26; 1 John 2:2; 4:10). Salvation is therefore only possible through the perfect, sinless sacrifice of Jesus Christ, the Lamb of God Who takes away the sins of the world (John 1:29,36). In His perfection, He submitted to crucifixion and willingly laid down His life as a sacrifice to pay for all of our sins, past, present and future (John 15:13; 1 John 3:16; Colossians 2:10-14). He took the punishment we deserved and paid our debt that He did not owe and that we could not pay (Isaiah 53:5).

He came to Substitute: In a transaction we will not fully understand until we reach glory, all of Christ’s righteousness is imputed or credited to our account, and all of our sin was debited against His account. When God the Father looks at those who have placed their faith in Christ’s death, burial and resurrection (1 Corinthians 15:1-4), He no longer sees our sins, but He sees only the perfect righteousness of His Son (Romans 4). 

He came to Submit: As the Word, Who created all, became flesh (John 1:3,14), He became the embodiment of submission to the Father’s will (Luke 22:42). He was born to a humble virgin betrothed to a carpenter of modest means (Matthew 1:18-23), and He entered this world in a lowly feeding trough among barnyard animals (Luke 2:7). In His human form He became the ideal example of putting God’s will before our own desires, trusting that God will work all things for our good and His glory (Romans 8:28).

Despite His infinite power, He submitted with meekness and humility to those in authority, knowing that God was in control and that His perfect will must be done (Matthew 26:52-54),. He came to fulfill the law, not to abolish it (Matthew 5:17-18), for in His sinless state He was the only man capable of keeping it. He knew that His teachings would bring division between His followers and the religious leaders of the day, resulting in persecution, yet He preached nonviolence (Matthew 5:38-39; 10:17-23; 34-39).

He came to Serve: Christ will return as Lord of Lords and King of Kings (1 Timothy 6:15; Revelation 17:14; 19:16), before Whom every knee will bow (Romans 14:11; Philippians 2:10). Yet in His first coming, He came as a servant, putting others first, even stooping to wash His apostles’ feet (John 13:4-15). If He could humble Himself in this way, how much more should we serve one another, and in so doing serve Him? In service as in all things, Jesus was the ideal of humanity in Whose footsteps we should follow.

He came to Suffer: Only by tasting our sadness, hurt, fatigue, hunger, cold, betrayal, and pain could Jesus identify with us in our suffering. When we approach His throne in prayer, we can have faith that He personally has experienced our need and has compassion for us in whatever trial we are enduring. He was like us in all ways, even tempted, and yet perfectly without sin (Hebrews 4:14-16).

He came to Show the Way: No man can directly look on God, and yet those who were blessed to see Jesus in His earthly ministry, and all of us who know Him through His recorded Word, know the Father, for Jesus and His Father are One (Matthew 11:27; Luke 10:22; John 8:19; 28-29). At the moment of our salvation, the Holy Spirit enters the believer’s heart (Ephesians 2:20-22), teaching us about Jesus, Who is the express image of the invisible God the Father (Hebrews 1:3). As He walked the earth, He taught us how to live, to be born again (John 3:3-8), and to have faith (John 20:29). Jesus is the only Way to the Father, to forgiveness of sins, and to everlasting life (John 14:6).

He came to Set up the Kingdom: Jesus was the promised Messiah, as foretold in Old Testament prophecy (Isaiah 9:6-7), to deliver the nation of Israel (Romans 11:26). In His Second Coming He will rule in the Millennial Kingdom on the throne of David (1 Kings 2:33,45; 9:5; Luke 1:32). Yet in His first coming, when His ministry was directed primarily to the Jews (Matthew 10:5-7) His chosen Hebrew people not only rejected Him, but crucified Him (Zechariah 12:9-10; Revelation 12:5; Matthew 23:37-39).

Surely this was no surprise to God, Who in His omniscience and foreknowledge has known since the beginning of time who would accept and who would reject His Son, yet without interfering with our free will (Romans 8:29).

So why did God allow this? In His infinite grace and mercy, this delay in setting the King of Kings on the throne of Israel allowed the Gentiles to be grafted in to God’s family (Ephesians 2:11-20), so that whosoever would accept Christ would become children of God and inherit eternal life (Acts 2:21; Romans 10:13). Praise God that Jesus came to us to allow this wondrous plan, and may we be ready when He comes again, meeting us face to face in all His glory!

© 2013 Laurie Collett

Reposted from the archives