God Living Redeemer

I had gotten into my car last night to go home from work and Dr. Tony Evans was on the radio, (I always love to listen to his messages) and he was explaining to his church the reasoning behind why God made man and put him over the physical creation. This got me thinking about why Jesus came. You see God created the earth after creating the heavens. He then created man to have dominion over the earth. As Tony had explained that God gave man dominion over the earth. This was God's representative over the earth in human flesh. When Lucifer/Devil/Satan came and tempted Adam through Eve. He then won the dominion over the earth when Adam basically bowed in submission to Lucifer by disobeying God's direct command not to eat of the tree of good and evil. Sadly this spun all of creation out of control. Sin entered into the world that effected not just man, but all of creation. God put in authority a man over his creation and through a man, he would have to redeem it back. As Dr. Evans explained, since God set the dominion of man over the earth, it would have to be a man to redeem it.

1 Cor. 15:21 tells us that death came into the world through one man's sin (Adam); and Rom. 5:12 tells us that through Adam's sin has caused all to sin. How do we know this? Paul quoting PS. 14:3 Rom. 3:10-12 that everyone has sinned and there is no one who is right before God since they have turned away from Him to their own ways. In John 8:7 when the pharisees brought a woman caught in adultery, Jesus asked that if anyone one of the accusers are without sin to cast the first stone. Funny how the author continues and stated that from the oldest to the youngest they walked away. The Elder John in 1 John 1:8 that anyone who says they have no sin deceives themselves with the absence of truth. 

 When Adam sinned God held court, not in heaven, but here on earth. The sentences were handed out, man would till the ground by the sweat of his brow, women would have difficult once a month and during child birth, and Satan would be condemned to his belly and his head crushed by the birth of a woman's child. Notice God did not say that a man's son, but a woman's child. This is how God would redeem humanity.

Isaiah 52:13-15 tells us that the coming Messiah would face persecution after being lifted up. He would be beaten beyond any human recognition. Isaiah 53 is all about the coming Messiah. Each portion goes into detail of what to look for in a Messiah, 1-12 that tells us that no one has believed in the message, there was no attraction about him to be a king or even less, a coming Messiah, rejected, pierced for our transgressions, bruised for our inquiries with the chastisement of the world on him completely; and finished up with barring the sins of many and becoming an intersession for the transgressor, (us). If you want to more about this, Hebrews 4: 14-16. The author tells us that he is the great high priest and empathizes with our weaknesses and understands our temptations and has risen into heaven. 

With that being said, on back to God's plan to redeem humanity. So we see in Genesis that God laid out a plan to man, woman, and to Satan as to what would come. Satan had already won over a third of the angels in heaven, Isaiah 14:12, Ezekiel 28:16, Luke 10:18, and Rev. 12:7-9 all talk about how Satan was cast out of heaven, but only in Revelations does it mention the angels along with him. In Matthew 4:1-11, Luke 4:1-18 tells us of Jesus going into the wilderness and there he faced temptation from Satan. It does not go into detail of when the temptation started. All we know is that Christ was full of the Holy Spirit when he left for the desert and fasted for forty (40) days. What we see is that during this time, Satan looked for a weakness to over come Christ, the Son of the living God. With each temptation, Christ through the Holy Spirit faced the temptation with the spoken and living word of God. Here, Satan has God in the flesh. Knowing that if he could have tempted the first man and succeed with Adam bowing to Satan, then he could for sure find a weakness and do the same with Jesus. Just as Satan tempted Adam with food, he would start out with the same by asking him to turn stones into bread. Jesus responded by living on the word of God which is the bread of life. He tempted Jesus with tempting God with suicide, but again, Jesus would respond with the living word of God by not tempting the creator. Finally, Satan would show Jesus what has been built in this world at the time. Since Satan had dominion over this world, he felt that he could show Jesus and tempt him with all the riches of this world if Jesus would just bow to Satan. Jesus knowing the plans of God, knowing that soon, one day, this world will pass away and that the living word of God will last forever, (Matt 24:35, Mark 13:31, Luke 16:17 & 21:33, and Rev. 21:1). You might say that all of that was spoken after the temptation, Ps. 103:16 talks about the ending of things, and Ezekiel 7:11 also talks about the end of wickedness as well. With this knowledge, Jesus rebuked Satan and reminded him of who God is and that there is to be no idol before God. Jesus added that we are to worship God.

You see, God had to come in the flesh to redeem humanity through Jesus Christ His son. Jesus was born of a virgin (Matt. 1:18-25 and Luke 2:1-21) God became flesh to redeem us to him. It had to be a human to do this. There had to be a miracle birth for this to happen and that was Jesus. As John the Apostle told us in his letter, he stated that the Word was in the beginning and was with God and was God and that word became flesh and lived amongst us.

All of this came from Dr. Tony Evans sermon on why God became a man to die for us. As he so beautifully put it from his sermon, Jesus the Great I Am. https://tonyevans.org/podcast/ All praise to Christ our redeemer. 

Sports events of April

Two weeks ago I woke up early to go to church where the Music City Marathon would be passing by. Our church every year sets up right outside to sing worship and praise to Christ our Savior as the runners pass by. This time I got there a little before 9 am as the runners were already making their way in droves pass by as the worship music played. As I walked up to the edge of the street I could only bask in the presence of God. Then as I seen the many runners raising their hands in worship and singing as they past by, I could only think of one thing.

Hebrews 12:1 "Therefore, since we are surrounded by a great cloud of witnesses, let us throw off everything that hinders and the sin that so easily entangles, and let us run with perseverance the race marked out for us."

As I stood there watching thinking of that very verse, tears of Joy began to stream from my eyes. It made me think of the many times we as Christians have been running a spiritual race at times seem to get bogged down from the world, schedules, fear, time, etc. and how those who are in Heaven are cheering us on. They are clapping, shouting, and dancing as we pass by encouraging us to continue on. For they know the great joy that lies ahead of us.

On the following Monday I went with some friends to the Predators playoff game. the arena was packed and everyone was ready to see the team get out on the ice. The lights went low and the spot lights came on and focused right on the entrance of where the Predators would enter the ice. Then suddenly we hear over the speakers that shouted, "Here is your Nashville Predators!" The arena went wild as they came out on the ice and the lights came up.

I stood there before I could get to my seat, watching, and taking in the surrounding environment. Listing to the crowd just go crazy for their team, and then it happened. I was taken back as I began to think of how will we as the bride of Christ act when He enters the room? I just stood there thinking of every person cheering, going crazy, and waving their hands for Jesus our Savior. It was so loud, and I had an impression that this is what it is like in Heaven. WOW! I wanted to began to jump and shout. Not for the Preds, but for Jesus. If you could have only been there. I can not do it justice by trying to write it in words. Oh how awesome God is!