BIBLE PASSAGE:
“I tell you the truth,” Jesus answered, “before Abraham was born, I am!”
(John 8:58)
MEDITATION:
When I was a child, I thought that Jesus entered the world in Bethlehem.
I could visualize the joy of His parents and the excitement of Jesus as a
child when He received gifts from those who traveled a long distance just
to bring Him presents.
I thought about how it looked to the shepherds in the field when they saw
a great light. The thought of an angel speaking to the shepherds and then
a host of them singing was exciting to me. At the same time, it was difficult
for me to understand the fear in the shepherds, but I was just a kid.
When I imagined being a kid in a barn with animals all around, I thought
about how much fun I would have (especially since I love animals). I could
visualize playing in the barn and feeding the animals, but not once did I
ever think about the smell or the gnats and flies.
Those are a few of the thoughts I had about Jesus’ entrance into the world.
But as I grew older and developed a better understanding of the scriptures,
I realized that Bethlehem was not where Jesus began. Even though getting
a grasp of the Trinity was not easy, I knew that it consisted of God, the Holy
Spirit, and of course, Jesus.
The Bible says,
“In the beginning was the Word, and the
Word was with God, and the Word was God.”
Since the Word was God, and Jesus is part of the Trinity, then it means
the Word was Him as well.
When I considered the words, “In the beginning”, I realized that Jesus
was here from the very beginning. He was here before the moon and
stars were put into place by His Father. He was here when God created
the planet Earth.
Even though Satan wants to confuse us by trying to cause us to believe
this was impossible, Jesus has always existed and is here from everlasting
to everlasting. Our belief and acceptance of this is the essence of our faith.
Why is the eternal existence of Jesus important? For one thing, it means
that He has existed longer than Satan. We know that Satan has existed
longer than us, so he is much better at tempting us, than we are in
resisting his temptations. However, Jesus has existed longer than Satan
and He is divine, so He knows how to equip and help us resist temptations
from Satan.
We receive His power and help when we surrender our lives to the Lord.
Doesn’t that give us an amazing amount of confidence to know that as a
believer, we have a powerful and more than adequate Advocate to help
us win the battles against Satan?
ACTION:
Questions to consider:
– What are my feelings about Jesus existing from the beginning of time?
– Does it help me understand why it was an amazing act of obedience
for Him to leave the splendor of Heaven and enter an unrighteous world?
– Isn’t it astounding that even though He knew the cross awaited Him,
He was still obedient to the Father’s plans?
Think about that for a moment:
Jesus left a perfect world to enter an imperfect one so
He could die and receive the punishment we deserve
for our sins. What an amazing expression of love!
Sometimes it’s hard to wrap our minds around the magnitude of the type
of love Jesus has for others. He sacrificed His desires in favor of our needs.
It’s sad to think about how many times we fail to sacrifice our natural
desires so we can spend more time worshipping the Lord, even though
we know it will benefit us and bring pleasure to Him. Aren’t you glad
that His love for us is greater than the amount of love we show to Him?
Faith means believing even if we don’t understand and have the ability
to rationalize something. As an illustration, if we drop a rock into the
water and it sinks, we know that heavy things cannot float. But then,
we see a huge ship that has a much greater weight than a rock and yet
it floats and doesn’t sink. We don’t have to understand the construction
of a ship to believe it will float; we know it floats because we have seen it.
But our faith in it floating is based on what we have seen. What if we had
only read that an object weighing many tons could float, would we believe
it based on a small rock we saw that sunk? Our trust in a ship floating is no
longer a matter of faith, but one of experience – we have seen it floating.
When read about the existence of God, we can make ourselves miserable
by trying to logically understand how it is possible. This becomes a point
of decision for us, doesn’t it? If we could see a faith in God, we would be
more prone to accept it, right? But that would mean we have traded our
faith for an experience.
It is no longer faith in something unseen, but it’s confidence in something
we have witnessed (like seeing a heavy ship floating). If we allow it, Satan
can create so much confusion about faith that we throw up our hands and
say, “No way!”. And when that happens, we miss out on heaven at the end
of our life on earth.
How can we possibly overcome our desire to understand so we can develop
a faith in God that assures us of an eternal life in heaven? The answer is in
God’s Word, and it’s not complicated.
He (Jesus) called a little child to Him, and placed the child
among them. And he said: “Truly I tell you, unless you
change and become like little children, you will never enter
the kingdom of heaven.
(Matthew 18:2-3)
Why would Jesus tell us that we need to become like a child? Because a
child doesn’t have to figure out or understand everything to believe. He
or she reads or hears about the existence of God from the beginning and
believes it – that’s faith. The message from Jesus to us is,
“Don’t make yourselves miserable by trying to apply
logic to something before we accept it. Faith is built
on our acceptance of what we are told in God’s Word;
faith is not something to be exchanged for any type of
experience. If a child can accept what is included in
God’s Word, then we can too. In fact, Jesus tells us
that we ‘must’ believe the same as a child does, if we
are going to have the type of faith that saves us from
eternal damnation and separation from God. Don’t
try to understand, just believe what we are told in the
bible – that’s faith!”
Faith in God’s existence requires us to view it as something different
than faith in anything else. It means we must change our normal way
of understanding things, and that’s something that’s hard for us to do
as adults. It means we must relinquish our natural desire to always be
in control.
It means shifting our dependence from ourselves to an unseen God
of the universe. But the beauty of this ‘shift’ is, God wants us to be
dependent on Him and not independent and relying on ourselves.
When read the instructions from Jesus, it can be complicatedly
simple, can’t it? The faith of a child is simple, but replacing our
desire to understand and explain things can be complicated for
us, because it requires leaving what we feel is our comfort zone.
Pray,
“Heavenly Father, thank You for Your Word that helps me to
understand Your existence and how You had a plan for mankind
before the first person was born. Thank You Jesus for loving me
so much that You would leave the comfort of Heaven and die for
me. Forgive me for the times I have failed to leave the comfort of
my home or other activities to spend time worshipping You and
reading the bible to learn more about You and the Trinity. Soften
my heart so my desire to fellowship with You will increase. In
humble adoration I praise You, my Savior and my Lord.”
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