MAY 23, 2025 ~ FROM A PASTOR'S HEART

MAY 23 DEVOTIONAL BIBLE READING:  PHILIPPIANS 2:5-11

There are those who have a real problem with accepting that Jesus was fully God and fully man at the same time. They want to turn Him into some "super-creature" that was half man and half God...something along the lines of a Greek god. Jesus was not half God and half man, He was fully God and fully man at the same time. In the Incarnation He became fully man, yet never ceasing to be who He eternally is...God. In Philippians Chapter two the Apostle Paul speaks of this as he writes that Jesus is fully God who empties Himself out of the prerogatives of His Deity to come as a man, yet He did not cease to be eternal God. John says that Jesus is the, "Word that became flesh...and we beheld the glory of the one and only Son, who came from the Father, full of grace and truth" (John 1:14). He claimed pre-existence and His Deity when He said, "...before Abraham was, I Am" (John 8:58). And John 1:1 makes it crystal clear, "In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God."

In Jesus we have God who took on the flesh of His own creation and came as a man. He allowed Himself to know the restrictions and limitations of the flesh, while never giving into temptation and always being obedient to His Father. Jesus came to do what Adam failed to do...live in perfect relationship with God the Father. Jesus came to rectify what Adam did. He went to the cross to pay for sin of all mankind. Adam's sin changed everything and because of it we were born into sin and estranged from God. Jesus' sacrifice on the cross paid not only for Adam's sin, but for the sin of all who will put their faith and trust in Jesus as Savior. Jesus shed His blood, because blood had to be shed for sin. The man Jesus died on the cross for our sin...He was punished for our transgressions against God. He shed His human blood to pay for our trespasses. Jesus is eternal God who became a man, yet never ceased to be who He eternally is, so that we might be reconciled to God and become His children.

Please share your thoughts.