December 25, 2017
Christmas Good News!
This Christmas, Dana and my prayer and hope for all of you who read this is that you will receive a better understanding of who God really is. That you would understand God loved you so extravagantly that He did everything to bring you/us back into right relationship with Him. There is no more judgment who put their trust/faith in the finished work of Christ!
For most of my life, the picture I had of God was of someone who wanted to judge and punish me for all the bad things I ever did—and boy was that a lot! I thought that God was sitting up in Heaven keeping a record in His big black book of all the things I ever did wrong. To me, God the Father was the One who cast judgment and brought on punishment because of that judgment.
This resulted in me having a fear of God but yet it never stopped me from doing bad things. Even after I received Jesus Christ as my Savior, I still had an expectation of judgment from God the Father.
Like a God-Father type. I think the idea or concept of God being a judge is preached in many of the churches today and is one of the main reasons that people have a distorted picture of who God really is.
I know many writings about the judgment of God make it out to be that there is no way for us to understand His judgment. “We just have to trust God.” “His ways are higher than our ways and you just can’t understand it.” Let’s don’t believe that!
God wants us to know who He is exactly! He doesn’t want us living our lives in confusion and fear of Him. It makes it hard for us to come to God as our loving Father if we think He is going to bring bad things into our lives. It is hard to trust someone who you believe will cause bad things to happen in your life.
So, our endeavor here is to clear up many preconceived thoughts about who God the Father is and about His judgment toward us as people. I will show you through Scriptures that God isn’t out to get you but He desires for all of us to see His love, goodness, and mercy. The true picture of who He is—not a distortion.
We can start in the Old Testament by looking at the life of Adam. God placed Adam in a paradise. Everything that Adam needed was here. He lacked nothing! He walked and talked with God on a daily basis but evidently he never really got to know God. You can see this perfectly when Adam hid from God after he sinned. Did God do something bad to Adam before he sinned? Why did Adam hide? Obviously, Adams view of God changed after he sinned. It appears that it was the result of sin that brought fear and distorted the way Adam now saw God.
Another example we have of a distorted view of God comes from Luke Chapter 2. For 400 years, God was silent to the people of Israel until He sent an angel to a bunch of shepherds tending sheep. The Angel of the Lord stood before the Shepherds to give “good tidings of great joy!” The Scriptures say they were sorely afraid or terrified! Why is that? It appears they expected something bad to happen.
One more example I will use to show how people had a distorted view of God is in Exodus 20:18. This is speaking of when the Israelites were in the wilderness and they tell Moses they only want to hear from him and not God. They were terrified of God and thought they would die if God spoke with them! Wow! They looked at God as a destroyer. They viewed the God who delivered them from Egyptian bondage, fed them manna and quail, and took care of their every need, as a life-taker instead of a life-giver.
We can see from these examples that man had a distorted view of who God really was. For 4000 years, from Adam to Christ, sin and iniquity didn’t allow people to see God for who He truly is.
We know that sin and its iniquity (the effects of sin) distorted man’s view of God. Because of one man’s sin, death came to all men (Romans 5:12, KJV). This one offense brought condemnation and judgment to all mankind (Romans 5:18, KJV). Mankind was now subject to bondage through the fear of death and to the devil who now had the power of death (Hebrews 2:14-15, KJV). The fear of death, or death through judgment, and punishment from God is not God’s doing! It is “SIN” that kills, not God! The first part of Romans 6:23 (KJV) reads, “For the wages of sin is death…”
James 1:13-15Amplified Bible, Classic Edition (AMPC)
13 Let no one say when he is tempted, I am tempted from God; for God is incapable of being tempted by [what is] evil and He Himself tempts no one.
14 But every person is tempted when he is drawn away, enticed and baited by his own evil desire (lust, passions).
15 Then the evil desire, when it has conceived, gives birth to sin, and sin, when it is fully matured, brings forth death.
Sin, death, and the separation it brings between God and man was not God’s idea. God’s desire is to have peace and fellowship with us. The last part of Romans 10:15 (KJV) states, “How beautiful are the feet of them that preach the gospel of peace, and bring glad tidings of good things!”
One of the greatest examples we have of Christmas is how God Himself dealt with the sin of mankind and the judgment because of sin. It was God who sent the Angel of the Lord to the shepherds to tell them of the good tidings of great joy, which shall be to all people. A Savior, which is Christ the Lord, was given to all mankind. God’s desire was peace and goodwill toward men (Luke 2:8-14, KJV). Immanuel, “God with us”, was actually God “willing” His goodness to us! (Matthew 1:23, KJV)
God wants us to see Him for who He really is. The picture we have of God will either set us free or keep us in bondage! The whole reason that Christ came was to show us exactly who God is! Jesus Christ is the exact image of the Father according to Hebrews 1:1-3 (KJV). There is no variation between the Father and the Son according to James 1:16-17 (AMP). God sent His Son to deliver us from wrath and to obtain salvation (1 Thessalonians 5:9, KJV).
God loves us so much that He sent His only Begotten Son that we could see Him for who He really is. He did this so that we wouldn’t perish, but that we would receive Eternal Life. God didn’t send Jesus to condemn or judge the world, us, but that if we believed in the Son, we would have Salvation and not “be” judged (John 3:16-18, AMP). Sounds like GOOD NEWS!
Romans 2:14 (KJV), tells us it is God’s goodness that leads to repentance. Repentance means to change your mind or thinking about how you see God. God revealed His goodness to us through Jesus. John 1:18 (KJV), tells us the Son has declared, revealed, and made known who the Father really is. The exact picture!
We don’t have to look at God the way the Israelites in the wilderness did. They only saw God as being judgmental, harsh, and unforgiving. We don’t have to be like Adam; who even though he lived in a state or place of great happiness and paradise, ran and hid from God. Their view and picture of God was skewed.
We need to be more like David and realize that “good” is who God is. Psalm 34:8 says, “O taste and see that the Lord is good: blessed is the man that trusteth in Him.” David saw God for who He really is. David actually experienced God. You can’t taste something and not experience it. David saw that God is good and that He loved him and us so much that God would do whatever it took to judge the sin that killed man once and for all! David foresaw this in what the coming of the Christ (Messiah) would do for mankind. David looked forward-toward this. We, now, look back at what the Messiah already did for us.
Two thousand years ago Jesus gave up everything to become a man to bring salvation and freedom from judgment to all mankind. Jesus showed in John 12:28-33 (KJV) that He would take all judgment, but let’s look deeper into this Scripture passage.
28 Father, glorify thy name. Then came there a voice from heaven, saying, I have both glorified it, and will glorify it again.
29 The people therefore, that stood by, and heard it, said that it thundered: others said, An angel spake to him.
30 Jesus answered and said, This voice came not because of me, but for your sakes.
31 Now is the judgment of this world: now shall the prince of this world be cast out.
32 And I, if I be lifted up from the earth, will draw all men unto me.
33 This he said, signifying what death he should die.
Let’s examine a few things in verses 31-33. Jesus said in verse 31, “Now is the judgment of this world: now shall the prince of this world be cast out.” What is the judgment of this world that John is speaking of? Why is the prince “of this world” cast out? The judgment of this world is the judgment against sin and its root that brought bondage to mankind. The prince of this world is “cast out” so he could no longer bring accusation and judgment about people to God anymore. Thank you, Jesus!!
It seems correct to say that Jesus is talking about judgment in verse 31. Verse 32 seems out of place if the subject of what Jesus is talking about is judgment. So, verse 32 must be interpreted by what is being said in verse 31, right? Let’s look at verse 32 and specifically the last part where Jesus says, “…will draw all men unto me.” Notice that the word men is in italics. This means that the word men isn’t in the original text, but was added by the translators.
So, if the word men wasn’t originally supposed to be in this verse, then what exactly would Jesus draw unto Himself? If we interpret verse 32 with the correct subject of verse 31, then we can render that Jesus said, “Now is the judgment of this world” and that if He/Jesus would be lifted up from the earth—speaking of His crucifixion—that He would draw all judgment unto Himself!
Do you “see” this? All judgment for sin that killed man was dealt with once for all through the body of Christ through His Crucifixion on the cross. Jesus Christ became the payment (propitiation) for all our sins (1 John 2:2, KJV). Christ took ALL judgment, for ALL sin, for ALL time, for ALL people, when He died on the Cross. God judged the world by offering the body of Christ for you and me—as the final sacrifice! Sin, and its judgment was dealt with completely!
The sacrifice of Christ paid everything. This is why Jesus said, “It is finished” in John 19:30.
When we call on the name of Christ and believe that He IS the Christ (the Savior of the world), that He died to take our place, and that He rose from the dead, we are FREE from any judgment of past, present, and future sins.
Can we agree and say, “This is GOOD NEWS!”, and one essential part of the Gospel of Jesus Christ?
After receiving the revelation of Jesus taking my judgment for all the sins in my life, I can now see God as a loving Father who has done everything to put me back in right standing with Him.
That is my reason to celebrate this Christmas and I hope it becomes yours too!
Merry Christmas and Dana and I love you!