“For unto us a child is born, unto us a son is given: and the government shall be upon his shoulder: and his name shall be called Wonderful, Counsellor, The mighty God, The everlasting Father, The Prince of Peace.” Isaiah 9:6, KJV

For God so loved the world that He gave…

• The Law to protect His people, but they didn’t recognize the Writer of the Law, they only debated the details of the Law.  Religious leaders of His people added their own details to the Law, thinking God needed help.  It wasn’t personal…
• Leaders like Moses who led His people from slavery to freedom.  But the people complained and turned back to idols they could hold in their hands or monuments they could erect to wish upon like the stars in heaven.  It wasn’t personal…
• His Son, Jesus Christ, the Messiah promised, who came to save the world once and for all.  Every person who believed of all their sins.  The veil between God and mankind ripped from top to bottom when God’s plan was finished—on a cross—for all to see.  Death was then defeated and Jesus rose to life eternal, appeared to believers and commissioned them to “go and tell” the Good News of salvation for all who believe.  Now, it’s personal!  Hallelujah! 

God sent a part of Himself, Jesus, as THE way to begin a personal, intimate relationship with each one of us.  This is the most important relationship we will ever have! Get this—God knew us before birth, knows us now, and created us with purpose.  As we call on the Name of His Son, Jesus, to save us God calls us Friend and desires to walk with us daily. 

Jesus, Emmanuel—God with us, has come indeed.  Our old “do it our own messy way of life” is gone.  Our new life with Him has come.  We are free to roam the wide-open spaces of God’s relentless love, peace, comfort, mercy and grace.  God personally takes us through hard times, opening up the red seas of our troubles and walks us right through them with wisdom help when we ask for it.  God, who gave His best at our worst, loved us so much He gave His Son to stand in our place of punishment for all our sins, once and for all.  There is no one like our God!  He’s personal!

Dear Friends, imagine it! Guilt, shame, regret, washed clean from the depths of very souls.  We no longer need to carry the burdens of sins—we are redeemed by the Son of God!  Only God can make us holy.  Only God can make things right with Him.  Only God can keep us on the path to life eternal with Him.  Yes, it’s personal!  Very personal!

“For unto us a child is born, unto us a son is given: and the government shall be upon his shoulder: and his name shall be called Wonderful, Counsellor, The mighty God, The everlasting Father, The Prince of Peace.” Isaiah 9:6, KJV

Jesus sets up a new government—written and carved into our very lives!

CORINTHIANS—CALLED AND SENT

2 Corinthians 3, The Message

^1-3 Does it sound like we’re patting ourselves on the back, insisting on our credentials, asserting our authority? Well, we’re not. Neither do we need letters of endorsement, either to you or from you. You yourselves are all the endorsement we need. Your very lives are a letter that anyone can read by just looking at you. Christ himself wrote it—not with ink, but with God’s living Spirit; not chiseled into stone, but carved into human lives—and we publish it.

^4-6 We couldn’t be more sure of ourselves in this—that you, written by Christ himself for God, are our letter of recommendation. We wouldn’t think of writing this kind of letter about ourselves. Only God can write such a letter. His letter authorizes us to help carry out this new plan of action. The plan wasn’t written out with ink on paper, with pages and pages of legal footnotes, killing your spirit. It’s written with Spirit on spirit, his life on our lives!

Lifting the Veil

^7-8 The Government of Death, its constitution chiseled on stone tablets, had a dazzling inaugural. Moses’ face as he delivered the tablets was so bright that day (even though it would fade soon enough) that the people of Israel could no more look right at him than stare into the sun. How much more dazzling, then, the Government of Living Spirit?

^9-11 If the Government of Condemnation was impressive, how about this Government of Affirmation? Bright as that old government was, it would look downright dull alongside this new one. If that makeshift arrangement impressed us, how much more this brightly shining government installed for eternity?

^12-15 With that kind of hope to excite us, nothing holds us back. Unlike Moses, we have nothing to hide. Everything is out in the open with us. He wore a veil so the children of Israel wouldn’t notice that the glory was fading away—and they didn’t notice. They didn’t notice it then and they don’t notice it now, don’t notice that there’s nothing left behind that veil. Even today when the proclamations of that old, bankrupt government are read out, they can’t see through it. Only Christ can get rid of the veil so they can see for themselves that there’s nothing there.

^16-18 Whenever, though, they turn to face God as Moses did, God removes the veil and there they are—face-to-face! They suddenly recognize that God is a living, personal presence, not a piece of chiseled stone. And when God is personally present, a living Spirit, that old, constricting legislation is recognized as obsolete. We’re free of it! All of us! Nothing between us and God, our faces shining with the brightness of his face. And so we are transfigured much like the Messiah, our lives gradually becoming brighter and more beautiful as God enters our lives and we become like him.

Oh Lord, My God and Savior,

Thank you for personally coming to earth to save us from all our sins.  Thank you for being with me right now as I ponder these words and write about the Good News of your salvation for others to read.  My prayer is that we all take this Good News, The Only Way to You personally, very personally.  I love you, Lord with all my heart, mind and soul.  Thank you for being my personal Friend as well as my Savior and Lord.  May your glory be seen in me today.  Help me to become more and more in every way like you.  Make your desires be my desires.  I want what You want.

In Jesus Name, Amen