Four things Christmas reveals about God …
Getting to know someone can be a wonderful experience … or a bit tricky.
Especially if, when you first meet someone, they present themselves as a burning bush!
That was what Moses’ first intimate encounter with God was like. It’s a meeting recorded for us in Exodus 3:
“One day Moses was tending the flock of his father-in-law, Jethro, the priest of Midian. He led the flock far into the wilderness and came to Sinai, the mountain of God. There the angel of the Lord appeared to him in a blazing fire from the middle of a bush. Moses stared in amazement. Though the bush was engulfed in flames, it didn’t burn up. ‘This is amazing,’ Moses said to himself. ‘Why isn’t that bush burning up? I must go see it.’ When the Lord saw Moses coming to take a closer look, God called to him from the middle of the bush, ‘Moses! Moses!’ ‘Here I am!’ Moses replied. ‘Do not come any closer,’ the Lord warned. ‘Take off your sandals, for you are standing on holy ground. I am the God of your father — the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob.’ When Moses heard this, he covered his face because he was afraid to look at God,” Exodus 3:1-6.
As it turns out, this meeting was also a job assignment meet-up; God wasn’t just introducing Himself, He was also tagging Moses to be the guy to lead the people of Israel out of slavery from the Egyptians. As God talks with Moses, he reveals something about Himself – the fact that He sees the plight of His people, He knows about their suffering, and He cares enough to devise a great plan to deliver them and provide a home for them in a land of “milk and honey,” a “promised land.” Why would He do something like that? Because He loves them! Here’s what’s recorded of the early part of that conversation:
“Then the Lord told him, ‘I have certainly seen the oppression of my people in Egypt. I have heard their cries of distress because of their harsh slave drivers. Yes, I am aware of their suffering. So I have come down to rescue them from the power of the Egyptians and lead them out of Egypt into their own fertile and spacious land. It is a land flowing with milk and honey—the land where the Canaanites, Hittites, Amorites, Perizzites, Hivites, and Jebusites now live. Look! The cry of the people of Israel has reached me, and I have seen how harshly the Egyptians abuse them. Now go, for I am sending you to Pharaoh. You must lead my people Israel out of Egypt,” Exodus 3:7-10.
In very little conversation, God reveals that He sees the plight of His people, knows of their great need for deliverance, cares about their suffering, and because He loves them, He’s sending Moses to work in cooperation with Him in saving them from an ongoing life of slavery.
Interestingly, Christmas reveals much of the same about God toward all of the rest of us!
He saw our plight of being dead in sin, separated from Him and unable to reconcile ourselves to Him.
He knew our great need was to be saved from our sin and its consequence of death, so that we could be reconciled to Him.
He cared about our condition and our broken relationship with Him.
And because He loves us so much … He gave us Christmas:
“For this is how God loved the world: He gave his one and only Son, so that everyone who believes in him will not perish but have eternal life. God sent his Son into the world not to judge the world, but to save the world through him,” John 3:16-17.
“When we were utterly helpless, Christ came at just the right time and died for us sinners,” Romans 5:6.
“But when the right time came, God sent his Son, born of a woman, subject to the law. God sent him to buy freedom for us who were slaves to the law, so that he could adopt us as his very own children,” Galatians 4:4-5.
Here’s what you can personally take away from the Christmas message, from God’s message to you through His Word:
He sees you!
He knows you!
He cares deeply and passionately for you!
And He loves you so much He did not spare His own Son:
“Since he did not spare even his own Son but gave him up for us all, won’t he also give us everything else? Who dares accuse us whom God has chosen for his own? No one — for God himself has given us right standing with himself. Who then will condemn us? No one — for Christ Jesus died for us and was raised to life for us, and he is sitting in the place of honor at God’s right hand, pleading for us,” Romans 8:32-34.
Merry Christmas, indeed!
Scotty
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