FROM PASTOR TIM JOHNSON:
It’s so nice to be in the Christmas season…and no, it’s NOT too early to say, “Merry Christmas”. Say it every day to yourself and someone else as the first words we hear about Christmas!
After the service on Sunday one saint told me that for the first time in their lives they made the connection between the Virgin Birth and Salvation. For some reason, they said, they had always just believed it but never knew why.
There’s no hurt in just believing, some things work like that. But it’s easier to cling to amazing beliefs when we can see their material value. The most important material value to the virgin birth is we are saved by God, not by human efforts.
Jesus was not only human, He was both fully God and fully human. Thus, as God, He was without sin and as God divine, capable of saving us.
As fully human, Jesus could completely understand us because He is, Immanuel, “God With Us.” No human could ever say, “God just doesn’t understand what I am going through” because Jesus as fully human experienced every single temptation that we do. Consider Hebrews 4:15:
“For we do not have a high priest who is unable to sympathize with our weaknesses, but one who in every respect has been tempted as we are, yet without sin.”
The virgin birth is a miracle. The Incarnation of God in the form of a baby is a miracle. The God-Man Jesus is a miracle. The Resurrection is a miracle. Your salvation is a miracle. My salvation is a miracle. It’s all a miracle.
So let us never forget the angel’s words to an incredulous Mary in Luke 1:37, “…nothing will be impossible for God.”
Merry Christmas!
Pastor Tim