In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. . . . And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we beheld His glory (John 1:1, 14).
THEME
INCARNATION
Reverend Nico Smith and his wife, Ellen, are the only whites in the black township of Mamelodi near the South African city of Pretoria. Going to a community of 300,000 blacks was a "complete change in his life, a rejection, in fact, of everything that his life had been until then and everything fundamental in Afrikaner society and Afrikaner belief." Smith has begun to see life and people in a completely new way. As TIME put it, "Nico Smith is almost one of them--not exactly, but almost."
The incarnation is about how Jesus became almost one of us. In one sense, He was like any other man--completely human. In another way, He was totally different--completely God. The birth of Jesus was not the first time God appeared as a human; the Old Testament records a number of times when God briefly appeared in some bodily form. Yet the Bethlehem birth was unique; God became a member of the human family and stayed around for thirty-three years.
In those thirty plus years, Jesus grew physically and mentally. He got hungry, tired, and thirsty. He slept and wept. He was tempted with typical human desires. He felt anguish. He showed concern. And His veins flowed with blood. Like every human, He died.
In His humanity Jesus was not just God with skin, but He wasn't just a person without sin either. He was like us, but different, and that made all the difference in the world. He could save us from ourselves, gather up the broken images, and make us like Himself.
-----------------------------------------
AUG 26
JOHN 1:14-18
And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us (John 1:14).
Jesus is God in human form. In coming into our world, He revealed the heavenly Father to us. That's what John meant when he said that "the Word became flesh." We call this the doctrine of the incarnation.
F. W. Boreham applied this truth in his book FACES IN THE FIRE. He wrote, "The Christian man must accompany the Christian message. The Word must be presented in its proper human setting. . . . The Word made flesh is thus pronounced with an accent and an eloquence which are simply irresistible. . . . The words of men become [filled] with passion and with power only when they are made flesh. And in the same way, the thoughts of God to men are only eloquent when they are so expressed."
To emphasize the importance of putting actions behind our words, Boreham quoted English writer George Eliot (pen name for Mary Ann Evans). Speaking of how people's lives convey the meaning of ideas, Eliot said, "Sometimes [words] are made flesh; they breathe upon us with warm breath, they touch us with soft responsive hands, they look at us with sad, sincere eyes, and they speak to us in appealing tones; they are clothed in a living human soul."
Likewise, if people are to "hear" the Word of God, they must "see" it demonstrated in our lives. Jesus said, "Let your light so shine before men, that they may see your good works and glorify your Father in heaven" (Mt 5:16). Christians who live what they believe give flesh to the Word.
--R.W.D.
We teach more with our life than with our lips.
-----------------------------------------
AUG 27
HEBREWS 2:14-18
Therefore, in all things He had to be made like His brethren
(Hebrews 2:17).
When Christ became a man, He showed His willingness to be tempted, tested, hated, and hurt. During His life on earth, He faced the same struggles we encounter. He had been sympathetic to man's weaknesses before He came, but by taking a human body He identified with us in a dramatic way. His incarnation revealed the extent to which He would go to pay for our sin and to be touched by the trials and infirmities that make life so difficult for us.
On a smaller scale, people try to empathize with the sufferings of others. John Griffin, a white man, darkened his skin in an effort to understand what it meant to be black in a predominantly white society. He told about his experiences in a book titled BLACK LIKE ME. More recently, a thirty-year-old woman, an industrial designer, masqueraded as an elderly woman once a week for three years to find out how it feels to be old in America. What she learned is heartbreaking. She was robbed, insulted, and frightened by a world that isn't easy on its elderly.
As touching as these examples are, they are nothing compared with Christ's coming into our world. No one else left so high a position to feel what mortal man feels. Jesus gave up heaven's glory and was tempted in all points as we are, yet He did not sin. He bore our sins on the cross so that He could be merciful to us.
We have One who cares. When we face temptations and trials, we can go to Jesus. He knows the feeling.
--M.R.D.II
Earth has no sorrow that heaven cannot feel.
-----------------------------------------
AUG 28
JOHN 1:1-14
In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God (John 1:1).
At one time a wise and beloved Shah who cared greatly for his people and desired only the best for them ruled Persia. One day he disguised himself as a poor man and went to visit the public baths. The water for the baths was heated by a furnace in the cellar, and the Shah made his way to that dark place to sit with the man who tended the fire. The two men shared the coarse food, and the Shah befriended him in his loneliness. Day after day the ruler went to visit the man. The worker became attached to this stranger because he "came where he was" (Luke 10:33). The Shah expected the man to ask for a gift when he learned his true identity. Instead, he looked with love and wonder into his leader's face and said, "You left your palace and your glory to sit with me in this dark place, to eat my coarse food, and to care about what happens to me. On others you may bestow rich gifts, but to me you have given yourself."
As we think of what our Lord has done for us, we can echo that fire tender's sentiments. He stepped from heaven to earth, from the worship of angels to the mocking of cruel men, from glory to humiliation. To provide our salvation, Jesus came in human flesh, took upon Himself the form of a servant, and "became obedient to the point of death, even the death of the cross" (Php 2:8). Our great Creator became our Savior. He deserves our heartfelt worship and humble adoration.
--P.R.V.
God's highest Gift should awaken our deepest gratitude.
-----------------------------------------
AUG 29
COLOSSIANS 1:15-19
He is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn over all creation (Colossians 1:15).
A little boy looked into the sky and asked his mother, "Is God up there?" When she assured him that He was, the youngster replied, "Wouldn't it be nice if He would put His head out and let us see Him?"
What the boy didn't understand was that God has let us see Him--in the person of His Son. We don't have to guess what God is like. Nor do we have to wonder if He's alive. By sending Christ to earth as a man, the heavenly Father fully revealed Himself. Jesus was God "manifested in the flesh" (1 Ti 3:16).
Christ made this point clear when He said to Philip, "He who has seen Me has seen the Father" (John 14:9). This is the good news we celebrate, especially at Christmas. God has shown us what He is like in the person of His Son. He left heaven's glory and came to earth to be born of a virgin. The baby that Mary cradled in a Bethlehem manger was the "image of the invisible God." All the attributes of the infinite God resided in Him. In fact, He was the One by whom "all things were created" and in whom "all things consist" (Col 1:16-17).
Looking into the face of our Savior, we can see displayed the holiness, the grace, and the love of our eternal, heavenly Father. This realization should make us rejoice, for we are gazing at God, who stepped out of heaven and came to this earth. Jesus Christ is Immanuel, God with us!
--P.R.V.
Bethlehem's manger was the first step in God's love-journey to Calvary's cross.
-----------------------------------------
AUG 30
JOHN 1:14-18
"You shall see heaven open, and the angels of God ascending and descending upon the Son of Man" (John 1:51).
We have glamorized the birth of Jesus. Christmas card art often depicts an idyllic manger scene with halos of light surrounding the faces of Mary, Joseph, and the Christ-child. His birth, however, was like any normal human birth, except for its crude and unusual setting. Yet that lowly scene encompassed the wonder of the incarnation--the infinite God of the universe came from the heights of heaven to the depths of earth.
Referring to the words of Christ in John 1:51, Andrew Murray captured the dramatic contrast inherent in this amazing event. In THE LIFE AND LIGHT OF MEN, he wrote: "The nature of our Lord Jesus is infinite in its extent. On one hand it touches the height of Godhead, on the other the depth of manhood. To use His own comparison [John 1:51], it resembles the mystic ladder, which in the dream of the wanderer [Jacob], linked the far distant depths of sky--where, more brilliant than sun or moon, the light of the Shekinah shone--with the moorland, strewn with huge boulders of stone, on which he lay. At one end is the title, Son of God; at the other, Son of Man."
Jesus is Son of God, in all His deity, and He became Son of Man, in full humanity. Yet He did not sin. Thus His death guarantees forgiveness and eternal life if we trust Him as our Savior. Because God descended from heaven to earth in Christ, we can ascend from earth to heaven through Christ.
--D.C.E.
The Son of God became the Son of Man that He might change the sons of men into sons of God.
-----------------------------------------
AUG 31
JOHN 1:1-18
No one has seen God at any time. The only begotten Son . . . has declared Him (John 1:18).
In an article in MOODY MONTHLY, Frank M. Fairchild told of a beautiful fresco on the ceiling of a Roman palace. Painted by Guido Reni in 1614, it was one of the most impressive works of its day. But visitors couldn't fully appreciate the masterpiece because they had to crane their necks to see it. To solve the problem, palace officials placed a large mirror on the floor beneath the painting, enabling viewers to study its reflection and more fully appreciate its beauty.
Fairchild made this observation: "Jesus Christ does precisely that for us when we try to get some notion of God. . . . He interprets God to our dull hearts. In Him, God becomes visible and intelligible to us. We cannot by any amount of searching find out God. The more we try, the more we are bewildered. Then Jesus Christ appears. He is God stooping down to our level, and He enables our feeble thoughts to get some real hold on God Himself."
Christ came to reveal God to us. But He is more than a reflection of the Father. He is God in human flesh. Hebrews tells us that He is "the express image" of God (1:3). And Jesus Himself said, "He who has seen Me has seen the Father" (John 14:9).
As we meditate on the wonder of "the Word made flesh," we will say with the hymnwriter, "O come, let us adore Him, Christ, the Lord."
--R.W.D.
Christ's birth brings the infinite God within the finite reach of man.
-----------------------------------------
SEP 01
JOHN 1:1-14
But as many as received Him, to them He gave the right to become children of God (John 1:12).
As finite creatures, we sense that our earthly life and eternal destiny are somehow bound up with our Creator. Most religions of the world represent man's effort to reach up to God and become acceptable to Him. In China, for example, devout pilgrims ascend a sacred mountain called Taishan. They climb seven thousand steps to its summit, first passing through the "middle gate," then through "heaven's southern gate." Finally they reach one of the most beautiful buildings in all of China--the Temple of the Azure Cloud. Here they offer sacrifices, which the worshipers believe will gain God's favor. Such effort represents great religious fervor--and futility, for it brings devotees no closer to God than when they mounted the first step.
By contrast, Christianity begins with the Creator of heaven and earth reaching down to us. In His holiness He is beyond the highest mountain peak, so far out of reach of sinners that only He Himself could span the gulf. And that's exactly what He did. By the miracle of the incarnation, He became flesh and offered Himself as a once-and-for-all sacrifice for our sin. Then, after rising from the dead, He went back to Glory. And He did it all for us. Our part is to confess that we are sinners, to renounce all efforts to earn our salvation, and to trust Him as our Savior.
Those still climbing endless steps of self-effort may as well give up. They lead nowhere. Instead, take that all-important step of faith in the Lord Jesus. It's the only step that leads to heaven.
--D.J.D.
Salvation is not something we achieve but something we receive.
