Isaiah 9:6-7 (NIV)  ⁶ For to us a child is born, to us a son is given, and the government will be on his shoulders.  And he will be called Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace.  ⁷ Of the greatness of his government and peace there will be no end.  He will reign on David’s throne and over his kingdom, establishing and upholding it with justice and righteousness from that time on and forever.  The zeal of the Lord Almighty will accomplish this.

This Christmas season we have been looking at who Jesus is, in context to Easter, when we concentrate on what Jesus did.  I get distressed every year because people seem to want the blessing of Christmas without the understanding and importance of Christmas.

Colossians 1:19-23 (NIV)

¹⁵ He is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn over all creation.  ¹⁶ For by him all things were created: things in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or powers or rulers or authorities; all things were created by him and for him.  ¹⁷ He is before all things; and in him all things hold together.  ¹⁸ And he is the head of the body, the church; he is the beginning and the firstborn among the dead, so that in everything he might have the supremacy.  ¹⁹ For God was pleased to have all his fullness dwell in him, ²⁰ and through him to reconcile to himself all things, whether things on earth or things in heaven, by making peace through his blood, shed on the cross.

How did God come to earth?  He didn’t come as a tornado, or a burning busy, or an earthquake, but this time, for the first time, Jesus came as a person.  Scholars call this the incarnation, carne, meaning is meat, God becomes flesh.

Why did the Son of God come to earth?  We were estranged from God, and He brought us a way, through Jesus, God to be reconciled.

Jesus came because we couldn’t earn our way back into God’s good grace, even if He gave us all the rules, told us exactly what He wanted from us.  It has proved to be impossible.

“He has reconciled you by Christ’s physical body through death to present you holy in His sight, without blemish and free from accusation.”  Paul knows how his own experience that we are not ready to be presented to God because we are unholy and totally flawed.

We are unreconciled, unholy, unworthy.  The Old Testament laws helped them to understand their position before God.

The Old Testament rules were meant to help people understand how far from presented they were to God.  You could do all the good deeds that you could and still not be presentable and deep in their guts they knew it.  And we know it too in ourselves we cannot go before God.

Why do we obey God’s laws?  So, we can live at peace with God.

What is the content of God’s laws?  To treat God as what and who He is.  That He is God and we are to love Him with all of our heart, and soul, and mind, and strength.  He is our Creator, and so to love God with everything we are, is simply treating Him as He deserves.

What if we break God’s laws?

It is less about breaking rules and more about pushing God out of His rightful place over our lives.  When we do that, there is a debt created and a penalty to pay.

The thing is, we owe God a debt that we cannot pay.  Without Jesus, we are not reconciled.

In the Old Testament people are told how to transfer their sins onto an animal, by laying hands on its head, Leviticus 16 when we touch the sacrifice, and it is without blemish, that blemish-less-ness transfer to us, and our sins to the animal being killed.  [This is what it means to be a follower of Jesus.]  We spiritually lay our hands on Jesus and His perfection is transferred to us, and the sins are transferred to Him, and He gets what our sins deserve.

The bottom line is that we are all unfit for an eternity with God.  He is holy and we are not.  And if you think you are near to God’s Kingdom in and of yourself, you are actually far away, but if you think you’re far away, oddly, you’re closer than you think.

We are invited to come and touch God in Christ, to invite Him into our hearts, and then He sits at God’s right hand and intercedes for us.

No other god finds people beautiful like Yahweh.  It doesn’t matter what you’ve done in the past; if you have accepted Jesus’ offer to be your Lord and Savior, then, like those lambs that erased the sins of the ancient Israelites at the Temple, your sins are gone too.

God’s grace covers us and as a result, God looks at us and finds us beautiful.

Colossians 1:22  He has reconciled you by Christ’s physical body through death to present you holy in his sight, without blemish and free from accusation.

He came so that we could celebrate Christmas, He came to actively love us into a relationship with Him that starts now and continues forever.

Continue to prepare your heart to receive Jesus in the flesh.