30 Days of Gratitude: Day 4

How easy is it to be a Christ-follower and not realize how much we take for granted? We are nearing the time of year we celebrate the birth of Christ. Granted, his birth was not in December, but that is another blog for another time! Too often, we take for granted the fact that God sent his son to us. God didn't just decide randomly to come to earth as a human. Before creation, Jesus was there. Jesus was in the heavenly realm. Ready for this: Jesus knew Satan before Jesus came to earth. Satan was part of the innermost circle before he wanted to be like God or equal to God and got himself and 3/4 of the heavenly realm thrown out! Jesus watched creation unfold and played a hand in creation. Jesus watched the early population make choices that distanced themselves from Him and His Father. Jesus watched his genealogy develop.

When God sent His son to earth, it was done to save mankind from ourselves and our choices. As a society, we have made it easy to blame others or try to pass the buck for our own choices. Our choices already came at a price. In fact, if we added up the cost of every sinful thing we do as individuals, not one person would ever be able to repay that bill. Instead, we can thank God because He sent His Son into the world so that whoever believes in Him shall not perish, but have eternal life. God did not wait for the entire world to love Him before he took the debt of all of us and handled it. When Jesus spoke with Nicodemus in the Gospel of John, he made it very clear that humanity had passed beyond the need for reformation. We were in desperate need of a conversion like no other, one by the Spirit of God. Jesus made it clear we needed to be baptized by the Spirit. The Jewish people, and many of the Christ-followers today, think that they have already had some inner transformation promised through biblical covenants. Jesus calls to be born again, to leave the past behind, to cling to The Way, The Truth, and The Life.

Jesus gives Nicodemus an image he would understand, comparing himself to the bronze serpent from Numbers. When Moses lifted the Bronze Serpent, those who looked upon the bronze serpent were saved. In the Bible, bronze symbolizes judgment. The serpent, being bronze, was a symbol of the judgment of sin. Some folks thought it too foolish to look at this bronze serpent being raised, and they perished because of it. Jesus taught that just as the serpent was raised in the desert, so shall the Son of Man be raised. The prophet Isaiah said, “Look to me and be saved, all you ends of the earth; for I am God, and there is no other."

When God sent Jesus to the world, He sent Him to bear our sins. He sent Him to take all the sins past, present, and yet to come and pay a debt we cannot repay. It was so intense, the weight of all the sin on his shoulders as he hung on the cross, that God had to turn away because God can't look at that much sin. "My God, My God, Why have you forsaken me?" This was the only time Jesus did not refer to God as his father, but only as God, because he knew God had to look away for that moment so Jesus could finish his mission. God had to let Jesus pay our debt. Let us thank God for sending us His son.