Bible Studies

PLEASE ENCOURAGE AUTHOR BY COMMENTING
Leave Comment Message Writer
Hire Writer
Report Article

Track Writer

Add to Favorites

by Doug Laird

12/11/24
Free to Share

Joyfully Celebrating The Incarnation

Part Two

When a person’s relationship is right with God, everything else, in God’s timing, will work out in one’s best interest (1), and to the glory of God.

This does not mean that the road ahead is going to be all peaches and cream. Many of the individuals that brought the greatest glory to God suffered the most.

As of the Church Age, one’s personal relationship with God begins the moment one is born again when the recipient is presented with the unadulterated Gospel Message and chooses to believe.

At THAT moment, the recipient is permanently sealed (2) (marked for identification) as a child of God by the (baptizing) Work of God the Holy Spirit.

At THAT moment, what had been the recipient’s dead spirit, is regenerated (3) by the Work of God the Holy Spirit.

At THAT moment, the individual becomes the permanent recipient of the irrevocable (4) gift of eternal life.

At THAT moment, the recipient’s name is recorded in Heaven (5). The significance of NOT having one’s name so-recorded in Heaven is made clear in Rev. 20: 15.

“Anyone whose name is not found written in the book of life, he was thrown into the lake of fire (Rev. 20: 15 NASB2020).”

How much one can enjoy his or her personal relationship with the Lord, while here on Earth, is dependent on how much of his or her time is spent in intimate fellowship with Him.

Committing sin of ANY (6) kind, immediately takes a born again believer out of fellowship with God.

He or she will remain out of fellowship with God until that known sin is confessed to God in prayer (7).

The length of time spent out of fellowship with God can be as brief as the time it takes to confess the sin, or for as long as the rest of one’s post salvation spiritual life, here on Earth.

This underscores the damage that such sin as living in the sin of not forgiving others can cause.

The “confessional’ that God designed is open 24/7.

Confessing, but then not forsaking (8) the sin from that point on, will prevent one from moving forward along the road to spiritual maturity. Such a believer will spend much of his or her post salvation spiritual life in a revolving doorway, going in and out of fellowship with God, but never moving forward.

Not only will one not move forward, but he or she will be subject to more frequent and more intense forms of divine discipline (9).

It was not easy for the Lord Jesus Christ to provide the means of salvation, yet ALL that a human soul has to do to be saved is to believe in a presentation of the unadulterated Gospel Message.

Saved from what?

Saved from spending all of eternity future in the lake of fire.

Our salvation would not have been possible had it not been for God’s plan of salvation, that began with the INCARNATION of God the Son.

THIS is what every born again believer can and should celebrate, no matter what prosperity, blessings, distractions, challenges, or adversity that he or she is experiencing.

Our earthly circumstances could change for the better or the worse, in a heartbeat, but the “reason for the season,” celebrating the incarnation of God the Son, and its part in God’s plan of salvation, does NOT change.

The devil (and his Eph. 6: 12 forces of evil) relentlessly, “… prowls around seeking someone to devour (1Peter 5: 8 NASB2020).”

He and they DO NOT take a holiday break.

In fact, knowing of the emotionality associated with the Holiday Season, he and they will not miss any opportunity to attack emotionally vulnerable individuals.

Angry, bitter, unforgiving, weary souls are easy targets.

It is by no coincidence that instances of suicide escalates during the Holiday Season.

Focusing on the incarnation of God the Son will not only bring spiritual significance to our Holiday celebrations, it will protect us from all the stress associated with all the distractions that alternative priorities have brought into the picture.

Fellowship with family and friends, the quantity and the quality of the food served at the holiday meal, and the equity of “gifts” (investments) exchanged, may not go as well as planned, with all that people say and do being the subject of much (sometimes heated) discussion between host and hostess once the guests leave, or by the guests on the way home.

The hatchet that was “buried for the sake of the day,” will re-emerge soon enough.

When things go well, that truly is a blessing, but being dependent on other people to make us happy can lead to much disappointment.

Only when one’s focus is on the celebration of the incarnation of God the Son during the Holiday Season, and all year long, can there be any hope of experiencing a s-p-i-i-t-u-a-l-l-y Merry Christmas, and Happy New Year.

(1) Rom. 8: 28 (2) Eph. 4: 30 (3) Titus 3: 5 (4) Rom. 11: 29 (5) Luke 10: 20 (6) James 2: 10 (7) 1John 1: 9 (8) John 8: 11 (9) Heb. 12: 6

PLEASE ENCOURAGE AUTHOR BELOW LEAVE COMMENT ON ARTICLE

Reader Count & Comments

Date