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HOW TO LIVE IN VICTORY DURING HARD TIMES
Part Fifteen - Understand Why Jesus Came to Earth
Volume XII Number 17 December 11, 2009

In this issue

Links to FREE Articles

The Background

The Gift of Jesus

Some Final Thoughts

Sinners' Prayer


 

Links to FREE Articles


Links to Special Financial Services















"Owe no man anything..."
-Romans 13:8














"...the borrower becomes the lender's slave."
-Proverbs 22:7















"...the righteous man shall live by faith."
-Romans 1:17















"...without faith it is impossible to please Him."
-Hebrews 11:6















"No one can serve two masters..."
-Matthew 6:24















"The Lord will make you abound in prosperity..."
-Deuteronomy 25:11















"...God loves a cheerful giver."
-2 Corinthians 9:7















"...the Lord... is giving you power to make wealth..."
-Deuteronomy 8:18

















Greetings in the name of Christ Jesus!

Thanks be to God who ALWAYS gives us the OVERWHELMING victory!

In two weeks most folks in this part of the world will be celebrating Christmas. It's still one of the strongest traditions in Western culture despite the efforts of so many people to do away with it or at least keep it out of sight as much as possible. For some in the secular community anything portraying a nativity scene or mentioning the name JESUS is especially objectionable. But many of those same people are able to tolerate a "Christmas holiday" if it's limited to Santa Claus, Christmas Trees and going into debt to purchase gifts. Of course the name of the day they're celebrating springs from the word CHRIST which means MESSIAH so perhaps that's why some of the more determined members of their group want to just call it THE WINTER BREAK.

Within the Body of Christ there's also a group of well- meaning Believers who want to kick Christmas out because they feel it's rooted in paganism or because Jesus was born in September (or some other month) instead of December. Others say that if the Puritans refused to celebrate Christmas on religious grounds more than 300 years ago then we should take up their example. Never mind that some of those same Puritans executed 19 "witches" and falsely imprisoned 150 other "witch suspects" in the late seventeenth century, also on religious grounds. Still others say Christmas shouldn't be observed because it isn't a scriptural (Mosaic) festival even though Jesus Himself observed the Feast of the Dedication (John 10:22), aka Chanukah, which wasn't part of the Mosaic tradition either. Generally speaking, Christians in the anti-Christmas camp tend to strongly CONDEMN the current tradition of observing Christmas Day and in the process they perhaps overlook the following Bible verses:

"Who are you to judge the servant of another? To his own master he stands or falls; and he will stand, for the Lord is able to make him stand. One person regards one day above another, another regards every day alike. Each person must be fully convinced in his own mind. He who observes the day, observes it for the Lord" (Romans 14:4-6).

Now it's certainly true that the TRADITIONS OF MEN can make the Word of God of no effect (Mark 7:13). And it DOES seem that lots of people who celebrate Christmas appear to be doing it out of TRADITION without considering it in their own minds. But frankly what one or another Believer chooses to do in observing a particular day is their own business. Whether or not they're doing the right thing is between them and Jesus. Isn't that what New Testament scripture really teaches, that the WRONG thing to do is CONDEMN and JUDGE other Believers? If this is true then the question we should be asking is NOT whether it's correct to celebrate Christmas Day. No, based on scripture the better question would be more like the following:

"Do you know what you're celebrating and why? And if not, are you interested in finding out what the Bible really says so you can be fully convinced in your own mind that what you're deciding to do is the right thing for you?"

Most people, even secular folks and those from other religions, know full well that what Christmas is supposed to be about is the BIRTH OF JESUS. But beyond that, knowledge gets kind of sketchy. Why is this event so important? What are we really celebrating? The facts are that Jesus was born in the town of Bethlehem (Luke 2:4) and laid in a manger (Luke 2:7) more than two thousand years ago. It was obviously an important event because it was attended by an Angel of the Lord who spoke to some nearby shepherds and told them he had some really good news for ALL PEOPLE which was that Christ (the Messiah) had arrived (Luke 2:8-11). The Angel of the Lord was accompanied by a MULTITUDE of other angels who were praising God as they made the rest of the announcement: on earth peace, good will toward men (Luke 2:14 KJV). Friend, those angels were glorifying God and singing and celebrating; and what they said is TRULY a reason for us to celebrate too. We just need to know WHY so that if we DO want to celebrate the birth of Jesus we can be convinced in our own minds that it's right. And, the truth is what those angels really said that night is NOT what most people think they said.


  • The Background
  • The story of Christmas actually starts in the Garden of Eden where God placed His first PEOPLE, a man and then a little later a woman both created in His own image. From the very beginning God gave the man AUTHORITY (the rule) over the entire earth and everything on it. In other words, He DELEGATED FULL AUTHORITY AND CONTROL to mankind and told the first man to exercise his AUTHORITY by filling the earth and subduing it (Genesis 1:26-28). God would not have told the man to do those things without also giving him the empowerment to do them and without planning to make Himself available to help get the job done. That's the way God always wants to work, through people.

    Unfortunately though the man allowed sin to come onto the earth when he disobeyed God and ate the fruit he had been specifically and pointedly told not to eat (Genesis 2:17 and 3:6). God had told the man clearly that if he ate the fruit from a particular tree he would surely DIE. The Hebrew word in this scripture translated into the English word DIE means to be DISCONNECTED from the Source, in other words a spiritual death, NOT physical death which came later as a separate consequence. Therefore, as a result of sin man immediately became DISCONNECTED from God and by default was reconnected to Satan as his new source who then usurped man's authority and the empowerment God had delegated. It was certainly within man's AUTHORITY to give away what God had delegated and because of sin he gave it all over to Satan.

    Now the Bible says that by the acts of one man sin entered the entire world and the sin nature of Adam permeated all of mankind and was passed on from generation to generation. But from the moment Adam fell, God went to WAR against their sins because He does NOT tolerate sin in any form. Certainly God continued to love His people but His wrath was stirred against their sin and under the Old Covenant He continuously judged it. The wages of sin is DEATH (Romans 6:23), both the separation from God kind of death and physical death, and sometimes God's judgment of sin under the Old Covenant seemed harsh and severe. But the nature of God is to judge sin even as the nature of man in his fallen state is to commit sin.

    And so after the Fall of Adam the world was in a bad state of affairs and the only way it could be rescued from that was by the shedding of blood to pay for the sin that had taken over everything. Since God doesn't/can't/won't tolerate sin, it must always be judged by the shedding of blood. Mankind tried shedding the blood of animals under the Law of Moses trying to pay for their sin but to no avail. The blood of animals proved to be ineffective. What was needed was a MESSIAH, THE CHRIST about whom there were approximately 700 prophecies in the Old Testament. And so, on the night the Angel of the Lord began speaking to those shepherds near Bethlehem, the world had been trying for 4,000 years to find a way to re-establish the CONNECTION that had been lost in the Garden. They were desperate for the arrival of their MESSIAH.

  • The Gift of Jesus
  • Now, it was going to take nothing less than the blood of a PERFECT human being to assuage God's wrath and pay for all those sins and it took special circumstances that only a loving God could have arranged to produce that PERFECT human. Mary was a faith-filled virgin and that condition was an essential requirement for producing a human being with no Adamic sin nature. Don't let spiritually-limited people talk you out of the reality of Mary's VIRGINITY because it was a REQUIRED CONDITION. The other required condition was that the Father of the perfect human had to also be perfect. And so God arranged for that by sending the Holy Spirit to overshadow Mary and conceive the PERFECT child by the seed of His Word. Nine months later Jesus the CHIRST was born in Bethlehem and the Angel of the Lord appeared there to make the official announcement.

    Every year most of our churches do their best to try to commemorate what happened that night with our Christmas Pageants and Cantatas and dancing and special lights and sometimes even live animals. The kids are so cute and people have fun being a part of all those activities. Indeed, those things about the local church are great to be a part of. But friend many of them, maybe most, miss the point; the people don't really understand what they're celebrating. Yes, 33 years later Jesus DID die on the Cross and the blood of redemption was shed at that time. So is the significance of the birth of Jesus merely that it was the beginning of a life that eventually led to Calvary and redemption?

    No, it was more than that because there was an immediate impact. Up until the night of the birth of Jesus, God had been engaged in a 4,000-year war against sin. But the multitude of angels that came to Bethlehem that night said: peace on earth good will TOWARD men. The word TOWARD is mainly found in the King James Version of the Bible. Other translations say peace and good will AMONG men or something to that effect. But where is the peace and good will AMONG men then or now? Jesus Himself said later: Do not think that I came to bring peace on the earth; I did not come to bring peace, but a sword (Matthew 10:34). The Greek word can be translated either way: TOWARD or AMONG. But because of other scriptures, AMONG doesn't fit what happened that night and represents an incomplete explanation for what the angels were actually announcing. The word TOWARD is the better translation.

    What they were announcing and what the celebration of Christmas is really all about is that the 4,000-year WAR ENDED THAT NIGHT. God stopped JUDGING sin in anticipation of what Jesus would do later. From the birth of Jesus forward, God started releasing His good will, His favor, TOWARD mankind. During the previous millennia He had withheld that favor from most people because of sin and now with the birth of Christ, God was calling an end to the hostilities and releasing His undeserved favor (GRACE) so that the relationship could be reconciled (2 Corinthians 5:18) and man RECONNECTED to his original Source through a New Covenant that was soon to be established. And it all started that night.

    You may be wondering what all this has to do with living in victory in HARD TIMES. Well, it has everything to do with it. Achieving victory in HARD TIMES or in any other times requires that we know who we are in Christ. Friend, the war is over! It has been over since that night in Bethlehem more than 2,000 years ago. God is not our problem and He has ALREADY judged our sins by the blood of Christ. Some Believers have a hard time accepting this. Since the birth of Christ though, the bad things that happen don't come from God; they come from the enemy, from the world and from our own bad choices and decisions. They do NOT come from God. That means we can overcome the HARD TIMES we're facing by coming into agreement with the Word of God and by redirecting our energy TOWARD resisting and overcoming the real causes of our problems. If we RESIST the enemy he must flee (James 4:7) and because of the birth of Jesus we can enter into the real war which is against a defeated enemy that has already lost ALL the authority he had stolen. Now in Christ the RECONNECTED Believer has regained the AUTHORITY that had been lost by Adam and we can use that AUTHORITY to achieve the victory!

  • Some Final Thoughts
  • Friend, if you're convinced in your own mind that you should celebrate the birth of Jesus, God doesn't care when you celebrate it. December 25th is just as good as any other day if you know what you're doing and why. Don't let others condemn you for what is right for you (Colossians 2:16). On the other hand don't let TRADITION cause you to celebrate it for the wrong reasons either. The point is the birth of Jesus is the greatest event in the history of the world. Everything changed that night. Grace and faith came back to the earth and hope came back to the hearts of men. The war ended! Celebrate it with joy and thanksgiving just as the multitude of angels did and receive by faith the gift of ABUNDANT LIFE God wants you to have.

    Thanks for reading PLN today and we'll be looking for you again in three weeks on Friday, January 1st in the new year of 2010. In the meantime, may God overwhelm you with the fullness of His love and spiritual blessing! Declare your victory over HARD TIMES and then walk in it!

  • Sinners' Prayer
  • If you've never invited Jesus to be the Lord of your life, you can do so today just by saying the following simple prayer:

    Jesus I believe in you and I believe that God raised you from the dead. I receive forgiveness for my sins and I ask you to come into my life today. I receive you as my Lord and Savior. I receive eternal life..

    If you were sincere as you prayed this prayer, God has already come into your life and you are a new creation, a totally new species recreated in His image. Now ask the Lord to lead you to a good faith-based, bible-teaching church where you can be equipped to fulfill your potential in the Kingdom of God.

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