Jesus Christ is the fulcrum, the pivotal point of all history. He will eventually intersect with every life upon the earth. We may think we can avoid him, ignore him, overlook him or reject him, but all of us one day will stand before him. He will be the rise or fall of our life. He is the judge of the living and the dead. His name is above all names upon the earth. He is God’s plan of restoration, redemption, salvation and healing. He will one day sit as the greatest king to ever rule over the earth and of his kingdom there shall be no end. Every knee one day will bow to that name.
Philippians 2:9-10: So God raised Him up to the highest place and gave Him the name above all.10 So when His name is called, every knee will bow, in heaven, on earth, and below. 11 And every tongue will confess “Jesus, the Anointed One, is Lord,” to the glory of God our Father!
The question that Jesus posed to his close followers, “Who do you say I am?” is the most important question that every man and woman will ever answer. Who do you believe Jesus to be? Precious Rock of Ages or a Rock of Offense? Son of God or just a man.
Matthew 16:13-17
(13) When Jesus came to the region of Caesarea Philippi, he asked his disciples, “Who do people say the Son of Man is?”
(14) They replied, “Some say John the Baptist; others say Elijah; and still others, Jeremiah or one of the prophets.”
(15) “But what about you?” he asked. “Who do you say I am?”
“But what about you?” was Jesus’ question to his disciples, because it doesn’t really matter how others answer the question. What matters is, “Who do you say I am?” Finding the answer to this question is not like struggling with some complex formulas in an advanced mathematics course. This is an “open-book” exam with the answer clearly laid out now in the pages of Scripture.
Unlike those who walked with him who had trouble seeing the “picture,” today we get the benefit of hindsight. This allows us to piece together the colorful mosaic and see the details of the Masterpiece. The most important question for every person alive today is still the same one Jesus asked two thousand years ago, “Who do you say I am?”
We all see things differently because of our varied backgrounds, callings, gifts, and needs. Jesus is gracious enough to meet us where we are.
The proper answer to his question, “Who do you say I am?” is what the Bible says, which is The Lord of Lords, and King of Kings; he is the Alpha and Omega, the Beginning and the End, the Firstborn from among the dead, the Firstfruits, and the Savior of all mankind. He is the Anointed one, the Chosen one of God, and the Messiah of all mankind. He is the Mediator between God and man, and he is the Way to everlasting Life!
Mankind has a massive problem that the religions of the world ignore and have no solution. Something has gone wrong within the human race. It doesn’t take a theologian or a psychologist to tell you that. Read a newspaper…Most of the misery we suffer on this planet is the fruit of the human heart gone bad. This glorious treasure has been stained, marred, infected. Sin enters the story and spreads like a computer virus…Any honest person knows this. We know we are not what we were meant to be…Something has gone wrong. We know that much. Whatever else we know, whatever else our convictions may be, we know that something has gone terribly wrong with the world, with us, with Life. It is at the center of every wrong, every crime, every evil, and every injustice is sin. It is our inheritance spiritually.
The Sin Problem
Ephesians 2:1-3: And you were dead in the trespasses and sins 2 in which you once walked, following the course of this world, following the prince of the power of the air, the spirit that is now at work in the sons of disobedience— 3 among whom we all once lived in the passions of our flesh, carrying out the desires of the body and the mind, and were by nature children of wrath, like the rest of mankind.
Spiritually dead, trapped in the course of this world, slaves of the prince of the power of the air, who is the god of this age, governed by our lustful passions with no hope for eternity. Not a pretty picture.
Romans 5:12: Therefore, just as sin came into the world through one man, and death through sin, and so death spread to all men because all sinned—
It is the condemnation, the curse and the malady that hangs over the human race like a dark could. Sin is like a deadly virus passed on to us by our parents. It is in the blood which is the life of the flesh and it is passed to every child at birth. No one can escape it.
Romans 3:9-12: For we have already charged that all, both Jews and Greeks, are under sin, 10 as it is written: “None is righteous, no, not one;
11 no one understands; no one seeks for God. 12 All have turned aside; together they have become worthless; no one does good, not even one.”
We are all under the weight and penalty of sin and every single member of the human race is useless or worthless without God. The word “worthless” is an enlightening word as to the nature of man without God. In the Greek, it means: to be worthless; to be useless; to be unprofitable; to render unserviceable, and to be unfit for any useful purpose. The Hebrew word used in the same verse in Psalm 14:3 means: to go bad and to become sour like milk.
God vividly says that a person without God under the power and influence of the sin nature is like a carton of sour milk. Sour milk is worthless for any good use and cannot be used for its intended purpose. The highest and best the human race has to offer in society, government, academics, arts, and every other category amounts to nothing more than sour milk without God. Every life, every purpose, every idea, and every goal lived apart from the truth of God and His Word is wasted and worthless.
We are sinners by nature, by birth and it is our habit and first tendency to sin. It came from Adam, pulsating thru our bloodstream. When Adam and Eve disobeyed God, sin poured into their nature, causing them to miss the purpose and goal that God had designed for their lives. Their entire relationship with God was defiled and disturbed as bitterness, hostility, separation, and enmity against God flowed into their nature like raw sewage or muddy contaminated waters. We have an instinctive unwillingness to acknowledge the truth of our condition without Christ as God Himself sees and states it. Worse yet, we seem to prefer our own assessment rather than His. Sin is deceptive and it blinds us as to its nature and its workings. The judgment of God upon sin reveals its nature and presence. There is a day of God’s wrath and reckoning coming when all mankind whether Jew, Muslim, Republican, Democrat, atheist, scientist and lawyer, intellectuals, white, black and every race will stand before Him and receive the consequences and just penalty for sin. Jesus Christ will be the judge: Acts 17:30b,31: “But now he commands all people everywhere to repent, 31 because he has fixed a day on which he will judge the world in righteousness by a man whom he has appointed; and of this he has given assurance to all by raising him from the dead.” Sin is a cruel master and there is a day coming, a day of reckoning, where the price for sin must be paid. Who will pay the price for your sin? Buddha? Mohammed? Your good works? Your political affiliation? Your job resume? Your social pedigree?
The essence of sin is to be against God. It makes us enemies of God and rebels against Him. Sin is always evil and it is an act of rebellion against God. Sin has the power to convince us to act using our own frame of reference rather than God’s. It has the power to convince us that we are the final arbiters of right or wrong, that we are the final determiners of truth, that we are the final judges. Sin succeeds in convincing us that we are gods of our own little world. Sin makes us neglect and be indifferent towards God. It convinces us that we do not need Him. It is setting our will above God’s. If God offers heaven, sin despises it. If He threatens hell, sin disregards it. Sin blinds us to the truth of God revealed in the Bible. What are we compared to the great Yahweh? Sin discredits God and brings reproach to His great name. God is infinitely worthy of all of our love, honor and obedience. The grievous error of sin is loving sin more than you love an infinitely glorious God of delighting in the things of this world and our own lusts more than God.
Who can break this power of sin whose wages is death? Who has the keys and power to crush sin in our lives? Who can pay the wicked penalty of sin? Justice demands the price of sin be paid. The whole world lies helpless under the power and enslavement of sin desperately in need of the Savior. Nothing other than Christ can deliver us from the devastating consequences and penalty of sin. He is the ransom, the payment, the substitute and the conqueror of sin. No one else. No philosophy, political ideology, religion or person can deliver us from the crushing oppression of sin.
Isaiah 44:22: (New International Reader’s Version): I will sweep your sins away as if they were a cloud. I will blow them away as if they were the morning mist. Return to me. Then I will set you free.
Only Jesus can set us free from sin, wash us as white as snow and pay the price for our every sin.
Revelation 1:6-8, And from Jesus Christ the faithful witness, the firstborn of the dead, and the ruler of kings on earth. To him who loves us and has freed us from our sins by his blood6 and made us a kingdom, priests to his God and Father, to him be glory and dominion forever and ever. Amen. 7 Behold, he is coming with the clouds, and every eye will see him, even those who pierced him, and all tribes of the earth will wail[b] on account of him. Even so. Amen.8 “I am the Alpha and the Omega,” says the Lord God, “who is and who was and who is to come, the Almighty.” 12 Then I turned to see the voice that was speaking to me, and on turning I saw seven golden lampstands, 13 and in the midst of the lampstands one like a son of man, clothed with a long robe and with a golden sash around his chest. 14 The hairs of his head were white, like white wool, like snow. His eyes were like a flame of fire, 15 his feet were like burnished bronze, refined in a furnace, and his voice was like the roar of many waters. 16 In his right hand he held seven stars, from his mouth came a sharp two-edged sword, and his face was like the sun shining in full strength.17 When I saw him, I fell at his feet as though dead. But he laid his right hand on me, saying, “Fear not, I am the first and the last, 18 and the living one. I died, and behold I am alive forevermore, and I have the keys of Death and Hades.
Jesus Christ holds the keys to death, hades and eternal life. No one else. He is the Alpha and Omega, the first and the last. He is the coming one who will astonish the world with his majesty and glory. Are you ready?
I John 5:9ff: If we receive the testimony of men, the testimony of God is greater, for this is the testimony of God that he has borne concerning his Son. 10 Whoever believes in the Son of God has the testimony in himself. Whoever does not believe God has made him a liar, because he has not believed in the testimony that God has borne concerning his Son. 11 And this is the testimony, that God gave us eternal life, and this life is in his Son.12 Whoever has the Son has life; whoever does not have the Son of God does not have life.13 I write these things to you who believe in the name of the Son of God, that you may know that you have eternal life.
There is no eternal life without the Son. Do you believe it or do you make God out to be a liar by not believing it?
This is the gospel message of Christianity in these following verses. This is the true joy of Christmas. What love, mercy and grace of God is shown in the gift of Christ.
Ephesians 2:4-10: But God, being rich in mercy, because of the great love with which he loved us, 5 even when we were dead in our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ—by grace you have been saved— 6 and raised us up with him and seated us with him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus, 7 so that in the coming ages he might show the immeasurable riches of his grace in kindness toward us in Christ Jesus. 8 For by grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God, 9 not a result of works, so that no one may boast. 10 For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand, that we should walk in them.
From the depths of sin to eternal salvation and a seat in the heavens next to Christ. From dead in sins to God’s ultimate masterpiece in Christ with the true power to help others.
Romans 5:6-11: For while we were still weak, at the right time Christ died for the ungodly. 7 For one will scarcely die for a righteous person—though perhaps for a good person one would dare even to die— 8 but God shows his love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us.9 Since, therefore, we have now been justified by his blood, much more shall we be saved by him from the wrath of God. 10 For if while we were enemies we were reconciled to God by the death of his Son, much more, now that we are reconciled, shall we be saved by his life. 11 More than that, we also rejoice in God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have now received reconciliation.
God could have left us as rebels, enemies and sinners but His love is so great He sent us His Son to pay the price of sin with his blood so we might be fully justified and reconciled to God.
I Timothy 2:3-6a: This is good, and it is pleasing in the sight of God our Savior, 4 who desires all people to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth. 5 For there is one God, and there is one mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus, 6 who gave himself as a ransom for all,
Acts 4:12: And there is salvation in no one else, for there is no other name under heaven given among men by which we must be saved.”
The Bible makes it clear there is no other way to salvation and no other mediator between God and man. Only one paid the ransom with his life, Jesus.
All the other gods of this earth bring chaos, confusion and ultimately cause us to self-destruct. There is no other way out of sin and to wholeness, healing, restoration and salvation than Christ.
True verse of Christmas and Wheeler Mission; John 3:16: “For God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life.
From God’s cry of “where art thou?” in the Garden after the fall His plan was to bring men and woman back into a full relationship with Him through the giving of His Son. This is embodied in the first promise of Christ in Genesis 3:15: “And I will put enmity between thee and the woman, and between thy seed and her seed; it shall bruise thy head, and thou shalt bruise his heel.” Bruise means to crush, overwhelm and break all the plans and purposes of the Devil. The word “enmity” in the Hebrew means: hatred and hostility with a desire to injure. There is no truce in this battle. There is no peace agreement. As long as Satan’s kingdom operates upon the earth, it will be opposed vigorously by Christ. God revealed His ultimate plan of grace with the Seed of the woman, the second Adam, Jesus Christ, who by His death and resurrection made available the free gift of righteousness leading to acquittal from the penalty of sin and right standing again with God. The court of God legally pronounces the declaration of acquittal when a man or woman confesses Jesus Christ as their Lord and believes God raised Jesus from the dead. Sin and death reign in this world because of Adam’s one act of disobedience, but now through the obedience of one man, Jesus Christ, and his sacrifice, we can reign as kings in this life and the one to come.
Christ gave deliverance from the power of darkness and gave us citizenship into His kingdom. Colossians 1:14;
Colossians 2:13ff: You, who were spiritually dead because of your sins and your uncircumcision (i.e. the fact that you were outside the Law), God has now made to share in the very life of Christ! He has forgiven you all your sins: Christ has utterly wiped out the damning evidence of broken laws and commandments which always hung over our heads, and has completely annulled it by nailing it over his own head on the cross. And then having drawn the sting of all the powers ranged against us, he exposed them, shattered, empty and defeated, in his final glorious triumphant act!
At Calvary, Jesus Christ stripped and disarmed the power and authority of the devil’s kingdom for every born-again believer. No devil spirit in the devil’s kingdom, no matter what its rank, can defeat you when you stand in the strength of the Lord’s redemptive work for you at the cross. The picture Paul is painting is of a triumphant general who has routed the enemy and leads the captive foes and spoils of his victory behind his chariot in a grand public procession through the city.
In the Roman world, this was the highest honor that could be bestowed upon a victorious Roman general. It was called “the triumph.” There must have been at least 5,000 enemy soldiers killed, and there must have been a gain of Roman territory in the conquest. It was an awesome display of the power, strength, and might of the Roman Empire. It was a spectacle that few would forget its images, as the triumph declared to the world that the enemy had been overwhelmed and crushed, now to be publicly humiliated through the streets of the city.
How much greater is the triumph of Christ as the captain of our salvation? What a triumph on the cross! What a victory against the forces of darkness! What a crushing blow to Satan’s kingdom! What a public display of victory to all those who have eyes to see and ears to hear! You become identified and in vital union with this triumph on the cross and all its far-reaching glorious effects when you become a new creation in Christ at the new birth. You are marching right beside Jesus Christ in this magnificent victory march with every wretched captive in chains under your feet. With great freedom, the power of the old sin nature has been stripped off and crippled, and the power of Christ in you flows and energizes every cell of your human body. You are a super conqueror who always triumphs in Christ. Jesus Christ cut away Satan’s firm grip on us and smashed the kingdom of darkness’s authority, control, and rule over our lives. No longer must we be a slave to sin or the bondage of this world. Jesus Christ victoriously led captivity captive for every Christian, according to the book of Ephesians, as he crushed and defeated every form of mental, physical, or spiritual bondage. What a triumph on the cross! What a victory in Christ!
He rescued us from the power of darkness and gave us full legal rights as a son or daughter of God. The word “power” in Colossians means: the exercised power to do something; liberty of action to do as one pleases; the delegated authority and power to act, and the right to exercise power. The Devil and his kingdom no longer have the liberty or power to do what they please in your life when you stand upon the triumph of the cross. The Devil no longer has the right to act freely with authority and power over you. We have been set free. He must flee when we stand against him. God has given us the full armor of God to stand firm against the onslaughts of the Evil One.
Christ shattered the kingdom of darkness. We no longer need to be enslaved by it. He can break the power of any sin, any addiction, any weakness and any affliction.
The goodness of God has its ultimate triumph in the Lord Jesus Christ. Evil has its sentence of doom and ultimate destruction in the Lord Jesus Christ. What Jesus Christ accomplished at Calvary is so magnificent, so awesome and so astounding, that it permanently crippled Satan’s kingdom and one day will obliterate every remnant of it from off the face of the earth. The Lord Jesus Christ broke the curse of sin and death that hangs over the world like a dark cloud. He regained everything that Adam and Eve had lost on that tragic day in the Garden of Eden and so much more. He paid the price for the complete redemption and salvation of the soul of every person who comes to Him. Through Jesus Christ, righteousness is restored to a person so that they can stand in the presence of God without any sense of fear, shortcoming, guilt, or unworthiness. The ability to have deep fellowship and communion with the Father and the Lord Jesus Christ has been recovered and given as a gift to all those who confess Jesus as their Lord and Savior. The Court of God has wiped our slate clean; we are as white as snow, as our redeemer has paid the ransom and penalty for our sin. We no longer have to live in bondage to sin, fear, worry, sickness, disease, poverty, misery, hatred, selfishness, and ignorance, for we reign as kings in life through the Lord Jesus Christ. You are a super-conqueror; you are a new creation; you are a glorious son or daughter of God with all the dignity that comes with God’s calling through Jesus Christ.
In Christ all depression ceases. In Christ all fear and worry melt away. In Christ all oppression is crushed. In Christ all addictions are shattered. In Christ all the chains of bondage are loosed. In Christ all condemnation is obliterated. In Christ we are made free from all the forces of darkness that plague mankind. No religion, idol, and god whether Islam. Buddhism, Wicca or Hinduism can set a person free from the exercised kingdom of darkness and the clutches of sin and death. Only in Jesus Christ is our redemption, salvation and liberation finished.
Only Jesus can heal the brokenhearted (broken in pieces, tread down and crushed, to shatter, to suffer extreme sorrow), set at liberty those who are oppressed (broken by calamity) and bring deliverance to the captives (the prisoners of sin) and give sight to the blind.
What a season to celebrate Christ: The hope for all ages.
Today there is a gateway of hope. God is the original and ultimate rescuer. And for all who want to be rescued, He is able. There is no sin too great, God cannot forgive it. There is no loss, He cannot restore. There is no scar, He cannot heal. There is no distance you can go, His grace cannot reach. There is nothing—absolutely nothing—to stop His love and mercy for you. If there is breath in your being, there is hope. There is hope.
The thief on the cross confessed that he failed miserably and admitted he deserved the horrible death he was dying. It was all over for him—hell waited, its mouth open to devour him. At least that was what he believed. Yet because of his confession and the marvelous grace of God, he will make it into paradise with the Son of God (Luke 23:43).
It is never too late. God is not mad at you. He is, in fact, for you. Don’t give up. Mighty to save and faithful to love is He (Zephaniah 3:17–19). It is to the very ones who know the pain of personal failure that He comes and extends hope: He has sent me to bind up the brokenhearted, . . . to comfort all who mourn,. . . to bestow on them a crown of beauty instead of ashes, the oil of gladness instead of mourning, and a garment of praise instead of a spirit of despair. They will be called oaks of righteousness, a planting of the LORD for the display of his splendor (Isaiah 61:1–3).
Ecclesiastes 3:1-3:
For everything there is a season, and a time for every matter under heaven: 2 a time to be born, and a time to die; a time to plant, and a time to pluck up what is planted;3 a time to kill, and a time to heal; a time to break down, and a time to build up;
Tis the season: We have all been thru rough seasons in life; now it can be a new season, a new beginning, a new dawn. Are you all in for God. He can turn our ashes in beauty, our mourning into gladness, and our weakness into strength. Are you ready for Jesus?
Verse 11:
11 He has made everything beautiful in its time. Also, he has put eternity into man’s heart,14 I perceived that whatever God does endures forever; nothing can be added to it, nor anything taken from it. God has done it, so that people fear before him.
Think about eternity, a life that never ends. Where do you want to spend eternity? Do you want eternal life or in your pride do you reject it?
I Samuel 12:16: Now therefore stand still and see this great thing that the Lord will do before your eyes.
The world has yet seen what God will do with and for and through and in a man who is fully and wholly consecrated to Him. Nothing is impossible with God no matter what your past, no matter where you came from or no matter where you are. He can save to the uttermost.
What or who compares to God? What compares to the inheritance awaiting you in Christ? There is nothing on earth greater.
Our past seasons: A season to forget.
When I called, you did not answer; when I spoke, you did not listen, but you did what was evil in my eyes and chose what I did not delight in. Isaiah 65:12b.
But God is ready for the new season, are you?
I am ready to be sought by those who not ask for me. I was ready to be found by those who did not seek me. I said, “Here I am, Here I am..I spread out my hands all day to a rebellious people, who walk in a way that is not good, following their own devices. Isaiah 65:1
There is a promise of a new life in Christ. 2 Corinthians 5:17,18a: Therefore, if anyone is united with the Anointed One, that person is a new creation. The old life is gone—and see—a new life has begun! 18 All of this is a gift from our Creator God, who has pursued us and brought us into a restored and healthy relationship with Him through the Anointed.
Today this Christmas can bring us to a new season, a new life. The old is gone. The new begins with Christ and the promise of the Father. It is
Christ in you, the Great Mystery revealed, which God planned for all ages. If Satan would have known this truth, he would never have crucified Christ (I Corinthians 2:8,9). This is how big the Christmas message is. A Savior has come, His name is Wonderful, the Rock of all Ages, the Liberator and the Deliverer. We need to look nowhere else.
Ephesians 1:19ff: The God of our Lord Jesus the Anointed, Father of Glory: I call out to You on behalf of Your people. Give them minds ready to receive wisdom and revelation so they will truly know You. 18 Open the eyes of their hearts, and let the light of Your truth flood in. Shine Your light on the hope You are calling them to embrace. Reveal to them the glorious riches You are preparing as their inheritance. 19 Let them see the full extent of Your power that is at work in those of us who believe, and may it be done according to Your might and power.
Friends, it is this same might and resurrection power that 20 He used in the Anointed One to raise Him from the dead and to position Him at His right hand in heaven. There is nothing over Him. 21 He’s above all rule, authority, power, and dominion; over every name invoked, over every title bestowed in this age and the next. 22 God has placed all things beneath His feet and anointed Him as the head over all things for His church. 23 This church is His body, the fullness of the One who fills all in all.
Is our life full of God’s purposes or our own? Who is writing the story of your life? In Christ, it is a new life, old things passed away. We become a new person, a new creation. The new season has begun. Are you tired of calling the shots in life; A new season begins with this question: “Lord what do you want me to do with my life?” Are we following Jesus or are we inviting Jesus to follow us? At its core sinfulness is selfishness. Its enthroning yourself-your needs, your desires, your plans-above all else. We may seek God, but we don’t seek Him first. He comes in third or fourth in our division. This is the season to go all in. The season to do all for the glory of God. The season to let Jesus be our Lord, our Captain and our Anchor.
Are we missing the time of our visitation? Are we ignoring the tug of God on our heart? Are we turning a deaf ear? Do we see the light?
Luke 19:41ff: And when he drew near and saw the city, he wept over it, 42 saying, “Would that you, even you, had known on this day the things that make for peace! But now they are hidden from your eyes. 43 For the days will come upon you, when your enemies will set up a barricade around you and surround you and hem you in on every side 44 and tear you down to the ground, you and your children within you. And they will not leave one stone upon another in you, because you did not know the time of your visitation.”
Are we missing the greatest invitation ever given to us? Is now the time of your visitation?
Luke 14:16ff 16 But he said to him, “A man once gave a great banquet and invited many. 17 And at the time for the banquet he sent his servant[c] to say to those who had been invited, ‘Come, for everything is now ready.’ 18 But they all alike began to make excuses. The first said to him, ‘I have bought a field, and I must go out and see it. Please have me excused.’ 19 And another said, ‘I have bought five yoke of oxen, and I go to examine them. Please have me excused.’ 20 And another said, ‘I have married a wife, and therefore I cannot come.’ 21 So the servant came and reported these things to his master. Then the master of the house became angry and said to his servant, ‘Go out quickly to the streets and lanes of the city, and bring in the poor and crippled and blind and lame.’ 22 And the servant said, ‘Sir, what you commanded has been done, and still there is room.’ 23 And the master said to the servant, ‘Go out to the highways and hedges and compel people to come in, that my house may be filled. 24 For I tell you, none of those men who were invited shall taste my banquet.’”
What are our excuses not to go all in? What excuses do we have to decline the invitation for a new life, for salvation and for restoration? Why won’t we sit at His banquet table?
It begins with the invitation from Jesus Christ-the invitation for a new life, a new power, a new joy, a new hope, and a new direction. In the midst of our turbulent times, He is still the only hope for mankind.
Who is this Red Thread of the Bible?
Who is the Red Thread? Jesus Christ is the Red Thread of the Bible – the thread that binds the Word of God together…You find him everywhere in the Bible, the Word of God! In Genesis, he is the promised seed of the woman. In Exodus, he is the Passover Lamb. In Leviticus, he is the high priest. In Numbers he is the star to rise out of Jacob. In Deuteronomy, he is the two laws-love God and love your neighbor. In Joshua, he is the captain of the lord of hosts. In Judges, he is the covenant angel named Wonderful. In Ruth, he is the kinsman redeemer. In Samuel, he is the root and offspring of David. In Kings, he is the greater than the Temple. In Chronicles, he is the king’s son. In Ezra and Nehemiah, he is the rebuilder. In Esther, he is the savior of God’s people. In Job, he is the daysman. In Psalms, he is the song. In Proverbs, he is the wisdom of God. In Ecclesiastes, he is the one among a thousand. In Song of Solomon, he is the bridegroom of the bride. In Isaiah, he is Jacob’s branch. In Jeremiah, he is our righteousness. In Lamentations, he is the unbelievers’ judgment. In Ezekiel, he is the true shepherd. In Daniel, he is the stone that became the head of the corner. In Hosea, he is the latter rain. In Joel, he is God’s dwelling in Zion. In Amos, he is the raiser of David’s tabernacle. In Obadiah, he is the deliverer on Mount Zion. In Jonah, he is our salvation. In Micah, he is the lord of kings. In Nahum, he is the stronghold in the time of trouble. In Habakkuk, he is our joy and confidence. In Zephaniah, he is our mighty lord. In Haggai, he is the desire of the nations. In Zechariah, he is our servant-the branch. In Malachi, he is the son of righteousness.
In Matthew, he is Jehovah’s Messiah. In Mark, he is Jehovah’s servant. In Luke, he is Jehovah’s man. In John, he is Jehovah’s Son. In Acts, he is the gift of holy spirit. In Romans, he is the believer’s justification. In Corinthians, he is the believer’s sanctification. In Galatians, he is the believer’s righteousness. In Ephesians, he is the believer’s heavenly standing. In Philippians, he is the believer’s self-adequacy. In Colossians, he is the believer’s completeness. In Thessalonians, he is the believer’s soon glorification. In Timothy, he is the faithful men. In Titus, he is the fellow-laborer. In Philemon, he is the love of a believer. In Hebrews, he is the high priest for sin. In James, he is the royal law. In Peter, he is the pastor. In John, he is as we are. In Jude, he is the beloved. In Revelations, he is the king of kings and lord of lords.
He is the doom of the adversary as promised in Genesis 3:15 and accomplished in Revelation 20:10. He is the “no night” of Revelation 22:5, of which Genesis 1:1 is night. He is the light of Revelation 21:13, of which Genesis 1:16 and 17 is the sun and moon. He is the “no more death, neither sorrow nor crying” of Revelation 21:4, of which Genesis 3:16 and 17 is sorrow, suffering, and death. He is the “no more curse” of Revelation 22:3, of which Genesis 3:17 is the curse. He is the welcome home to paradise of Revelation 22:2, of which Genesis 3:22 to 24 is the banishment from paradise.
Who is this Jesus Christ?
He is Abel’s sacrifice, Abraham’s ram, Isaac’s well, Jacob’s ladder. He is Judah’s scepter, Moses’ rod, Joshua’s rams’ horn, Samuel’s horn of oil, David’s slingshot, Hezekiah’s sundial, Elijah’s mantle and Elisha’s staff. He is Job’s prayer, Isaiah’s fig tree, Ezekiel’s wheel, Daniel’s Jerusalem window, Jonah’s sea monster and Malachi’s storehouse. He is Peter’s shadow, Paul’s handkerchiefs and aprons. He is the lily of the valley and the rose of Sharon in life’s desserts. He is the pearl of great price. He is the rock for pilgrims in a weary land. He is the believer’s justification. He is the believer’s righteousness. He is the believer’s sanctification. He is the believer’s redemption. He is the believer’s knowledge. He is the believer’s wisdom. He is the believer’s all-in-all in all. He is the believer’s completely complete completeness. He is the bright and morning star, and he’s my Lord and my Savior.
He is knocking at the door of your heart right now. He is inviting you this Christmas to open the door and let him into your heart. Confess him as Lord and believe that He is alive because God raised him from the dead. Repent and turn to him and receive the power of the gift of Holy Spirit and receive the new birth. This is the greatest Christmas gift of all.
Tim Rowe
