Christmas Part 1

Eternity Online: John Edmiston (Editor)



Eternity-Inspiration for Friday 12th  December 1997


Christmas Part 1

(Matthew 1:21 NIV) She will give birth to a son, and you are to give him the name Jesus, because he will save his people from their sins."
Jesus means Saviour. That is His role. Yes He is Lord and that is important too - but His nature is as the "lamb that was slain". Redemption and salvation and healing and rescuing the world from itself and from the demonic forces that inhabit it is His prime purpose. On this latter point the apostle John is quite clear (1 John 3:8 NKJV) He who sins is of the devil, for the devil has sinned from the beginning. For this purpose the Son of God was manifested, that He might destroy the works of the devil.

Christmas means that God launched His attack against sin, death and the devil. It was the opening move in a 30 year war. It was a seemingly very fragile move and aroused instant hostility once it became known through the magi. The Saviour himself needed to be saved.

For us now though we have a Saviour and we need to know how this operates.For years i saw my salvation as an event that happened on the 1st of May 1978. Only as I read the Old Testament and particularly Judges did I get the picture of what a Saviour was. A saviour is someone who you call on continually to get you out of trouble. Its like a doctor. We get a lot of medical attention when we are born and certainly medical attention then is necessary and good. However it would be foolish to never call on the doctor again. Some Christians are just like that - they see Jesus as a Saviour when they are born again but then they never call on Him again. Jesus is constantly our Saviour.

Well what does He save us from? The above verse says that He saves us from our sins. That is the great salvation. It means that our future in heaven is secure and that no matter what this life brings we can be confident that we are in good standing with God. Then there are "small s" salvations and we see many of these during His ministry - salvation from disease, from death, from demons, from lack of food, from storms and from shame. Jesus can sort out whatever mess you are in.

(Romans 10:13 NKJV) For "whoever calls on the name of the LORD shall be saved." You need to call on your Saviour for Him to help you and to call on Jesus requires faith that He will act. To get healed you have to call the doctor and then not keep grabbing the scalpel out of her hand. You have to trust your doctor. You have to let Him prescribe and operate. To experience Jesus as our Saviour we have to call Him into our lives and situations and let Him fix them and obey His instructions for dealing with them. Sometimes He will do a miracle but ordinarily He just gives us the wisdom to deal with it or makes one of those "divine appointments" that fix the whole thing.

Prayer:
Lord Jesus help us to be humble and trusting and to let You come into our lives and be our Saviour in all our troubles. In Jesus name. Amen.

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John Edmiston ([email protected])
Editor - Eternity Online Magazine http://www.eternitymag.com/
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