FROM
THE CRADLE TO THE CROSS FOR OUR SAKE
BREAD
8 And there were shepherds living out in the fields
nearby, keeping watch over their flocks at night. 9 An
angel of the Lord appeared to them, and the glory of the Lord shone around
them, and they were terrified. 10 But the angel said to them, “Do not be afraid. I bring
you good news of great joy that will be for all the people. 11 Today
in the town of David a Savior has been born to you; he is Christ the Lord. Luke 2:8-11 (NIV)
25 Now
there was a man in Jerusalem called Simeon, who was righteous and devout. He
was waiting for the consolation of Israel, and the Holy Spirit was upon him. 26 It
had been revealed to him by the Holy Spirit that he would not die before he had
seen the Lord's Christ. 27 Moved by the Spirit, he went into the temple courts.
When the parents brought in the child Jesus to do for him what the custom of
the Law required, 28 Simeon took him in his arms and praised God, saying: 29 “Sovereign Lord, as you have promised, you now dismiss your
servant in peace. 30 For my eyes have seen your salvation, 31 which you have prepared in the sight of all people, 32 a
light for revelation to the Gentiles and for glory to your people Israel.” 33 The
child's father and mother marveled at what was said about him. 34 Then
Simeon blessed them and said to Mary, his mother: “This child is destined to
cause the falling and rising of many in Israel, and to be a sign that will be
spoken against, 35 so that the thoughts of many hearts will be revealed.
And a sword will pierce your own soul too.”
Luke 2:25-35 (NIV)
1 Who has believed our message and to whom has the arm
of the LORD been revealed? 2 He grew up before him like a tender shoot, and like a
root out of dry ground. He had no beauty or majesty to attract us to him, nothing
in his appearance that we should desire him. 3 He was despised and rejected by men, a man of sorrows, and
familiar with suffering.
Like one from whom men hide their faces he was despised, and we esteemed him not. 4 Surely he took up our infirmities and carried our sorrows, yet we considered him stricken by God, smitten by him, and afflicted. 5 But he was pierced for our transgressions, he was crushed for our iniquities; the punishment that brought us peace was upon him, and by his wounds we are healed. 6 We all, like sheep, have gone astray, each of us has turned to his own way; and the LORD has laid on him the iniquity of us all. Isaiah 53:1-6 (NIV)
Like one from whom men hide their faces he was despised, and we esteemed him not. 4 Surely he took up our infirmities and carried our sorrows, yet we considered him stricken by God, smitten by him, and afflicted. 5 But he was pierced for our transgressions, he was crushed for our iniquities; the punishment that brought us peace was upon him, and by his wounds we are healed. 6 We all, like sheep, have gone astray, each of us has turned to his own way; and the LORD has laid on him the iniquity of us all. Isaiah 53:1-6 (NIV)
21 God made him who had no sin to be sin for us, so that
in him we might become the righteousness of God. 2 Corinthians 5:21 (NIV)
13 When you were dead in your sins and in the
uncircumcision of your sinful nature, God made you alive with Christ. He
forgave us all our sins, 14 having canceled the written code, with its
regulations, that was against us and that stood opposed to us; he took it away,
nailing it to the cross. 15 And having disarmed the powers and authorities, he
made a public spectacle of them, triumphing over them by the cross. Colossians 2:13-15 (NIV)
5 Your attitude should be the same as that of Christ
Jesus: 6 Who,
being in very nature God, did not consider equality with God something to be
grasped, 7 but made himself nothing, taking the very nature of a
servant, being made in human likeness. 8 And being found in appearance as a man, he humbled himself and
became obedient to death--even death on a cross! Philippians 2:5-8 (NIV)
33 Who will bring any charge against those whom God has
chosen? It is God who justifies. 34 Who is he that condemns? Christ Jesus, who died--more
than that, who was raised to life--is at the right hand of God and is also
interceding for us. 35 Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall
trouble or hardship or persecution or famine or nakedness or danger or sword? 36 As
it is written: “For your sake we face death all day long; we are considered as
sheep to be slaughtered.” 37 No, in all these things we are more than conquerors
through him who loved us. 38 For I am convinced that neither death nor life,
neither angels nor demons, neither the present nor the future, nor any powers, 39 neither
height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate
us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord. Romans 8:33-39 (NIV)
BUTTER
“Our God is a God who not merely restores,
but takes up our mistakes and follies into His plan for us and brings good out
of them.” J.I.
Packer
“When God fixes our position for us, we
may rest assured that it is a wise and salutary one; and even when we foolishly
and willfully choose a position for ourselves, He most graciously overrules our
folly, and causes the influences of our self-chosen circumstances to work for
our spiritual benefit.” One Older Commentator of Exodus 14
“The supreme happiness of life,” Victor Hugo said, “is the conviction that we are
loved”….Unfortunately, many people go through life feeling unloved – and
unlovable…No matter the reason, your feelings aren’t telling you the
truth! God loves you, and if you begin
to see yourself the way God sees you, your attitudes will begin to change. If He didn’t love you, would Christ have been
willing to die for you? But He did! The Bible says, “By this we know love,
because He laid down His life for us” (1 John 3:16). God loves you. Hammer that truth into your head and mind
every day. It will make all the
difference.” Billy Graham
“The only ground
on which God can forgive our sin and reinstate us to His favor is through the Cross
of Christ. There is no other way! Forgiveness, which is so easy for us to
accept, cost the agony at Calvary. We
should never take the forgiveness of sin, the gift of the Holy Spirit, and our
sanctification in simple faith, and then forget the enormous cost to God that
made all of this ours. Forgiveness is
the divine miracle of grace. The cost to
God was the Cross of Christ. To forgive
sin, while remaining a holy God, this price had to be paid. Never accept a view of the fatherhood of God
if it blots out the atonement. The
revealed truth of God is that without the atonement He cannot forgive – He
would contradict His nature if He did.
The only way we can be forgiven is by being brought back to God through
the atonement of the Cross. God’s forgiveness
is possible only in the supernatural realm……Once you realize
all that it cost God to forgive you, you will be held as in a vise, constrained
by the love of God.” Oswald Chambers
“God looked on Christ as if Christ had been sin; not
as if He had taken up the sins of His people, or as if they were laid on Him,
though that were true, but as if He Himself had positively been that
noxious—that God-hating—that soul-damning thing, called sin. When the Judge of
all the earth said, ‘Where is Sin?’ Christ presented himself…what a grim
picture that is, to conceive of sin gathered up into one mass—murder, lust and
stealing, and adultery…and the Father looked on Christ as if He were that mass
of sin. He was not sin, but the Father looked on upon Him as made sin for us.
Christ stands in our place, assumes our guilt, takes on our iniquity and God
treats Him as if He had been sin…How can any punishment fall on that man who
ceases to possess sin, because his sin was cast upon Christ and Christ has
suffered in his place? Oh, glorious triumph of faith to be able to say,
whenever I feel the guilt of sin, whenever conscience pricks me, ‘Yes, it is
true but my Lord is answerable for it all, for He has taken it all
upon Himself and suffered in my place.”
Charles Spurgeon
“This knowledge [of our own sinfulness], though it
strikes man with terror and overwhelms him with despair, is nevertheless
necessary for us in order that, stripped of our own righteousness, cast down
from confidence in our own power, deprived of all expectation of life, we may
learn through the knowledge of our own poverty, misery and disgrace to
prostrate ourselves before the Lord, and by the awareness of our own
wickedness, powerlessness, and ruin may give all credit for holiness, power and
salvation to him.” John Calvin
“Costly grace is
the Gospel which must be sought again and again, the gift which must be asked
for, the door at which a man must knock.
Such grace is costly because it calls us to follow, and it is grace
because it calls us to follow Jesus Christ.
It is costly because it costs a man his life, and it is grace because it
gives a man the only true life. It is
costly because it condemns sin, and grace because it justifies the sinner. Above all, it is costly because it cost God
the life of his Son. ‘Ye were bought at
a price,’ and what has cost God much cannot be cheap for us. Above all, it is grace because God did not
reckon his Son too dear
a price to pay for our life, but delivered him up for us. Costly grace is the incarnation of God.” Dietrich
Bonhoeffer
“Against
me earth and hell combine, But on my side is power divine; Jesus is all, and He
is mine!” Charles H. Spurgeon
“We will never put God in
a nice little convenient proverbial box of our own makings and
imaginations. He is so totally other –
His thoughts are not our thoughts neither His ways our ways. His paths for us are always perfect and
pleasing and have our best interest at heart though unimaginatively hard. His ways may not lead us into comfort and
painlessness. Indeed, His children
should not expect to be carried into heaven on a bed of down though He can do
so if He so desires. More often than
not, His ways lead us into circumstances ‘far beyond our ability to endure’ to
demonstrate to the unbelieving world (and to ourselves for that matter) His
power in our lives whether it be by miraculously changing our circumstances or
just as miraculously (or even more so),
by changing our hearts through the circumstances. His good ways will always
lead us on paths of conformation to the fullness of His precious Son – that’s
the purpose. He wants us to be like
Jesus – whatever it takes - and we want that too. That is the abundant life.” BHY
HEART SAVOR
·
If God is for us, who can be against us?
·
He didn’t save us because we were cuddly, clean
and perfect little things, He saved us when we were tromping through His
creation wallowing in filth, helpless and hopeless. For all have sinned and fall short of the
glory of God. We all need a Savior and praise
Jesus we have One!
·
We were bought with a price and we are to honor
God with our bodies.
MERRY CHRISTMAS FROM ME TO YOU!
