A Child of God

“In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.” - John 1:1

There’s a story about a little boy who was wakened during the night by a thunderstorm. He called down the hall to his mother because he was scared. Well, now and then we all have less-than-perfect parenting moments, and in the wee hours, Mom was hoping to avoid getting out of bed. So she called back, “Don't worry, sweetheart. God loves you, and He’ll take care of you.” But after a moment the little boy answered, “Mom, I know God loves me. But right now, I need someone with skin on."

In the last few weeks I’ve been looking at the Christmas story through the eyes of the gospel writers. In the final gospel, the apostle John gives us his take on the birth of Jesus, and here’s what he tells us: Jesus Christ came to earth as God with skin on.

The book of John opens, “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.” From that opening verse, John wants us to wrestle with the earth-shattering truth that Jesus is God. And so, when Jesus was born on that first Christmas, God had come down. Jesus was God in the flesh, and this world would never be the same.

Warren Wiersbe says it well: “Much as our words reveal to others our hearts and minds, so Jesus Christ is God’s ‘Word’ to reveal His heart and mind to us. Jesus said, ‘He who has seen me has seen the Father’” (John 14:9). Isn’t that awesome? For centuries people wondered what God would look like and talk like and act like in the real world. Well, Jesus showed us once and for all, didn’t he? Jesus is God’s heart and mind with skin on.

John 1 makes it clear that Jesus created the world. So creation—including humankind—was rightfully his. But when Jesus came into the world, most people did not recognize him as the Word of God (John 1:10-11). Most people didn’t recognize him as the Creator. So, when given the choice of whether to receive him or reject him, most people opted for rejecting him. But for the few who did receive him, for the few who did place their trust in him, “he gave the right to become children of God” (John 1:12b).

This is an important distinction. You see, many people say, “After all, we’re all children of God.” No, we’re not. Biblically, that’s just not true. We are all CREATIONS of God. But unless we become believers and followers of Jesus Christ, we will never become CHILDREN of God. Spiritual adoption into God’s eternal family can only come through Jesus Christ: the eternal Word of God.

And in verses 14 and 17, John gives us two words that seem to hop off the pages of our Bibles: grace and truth. Let’s look at that first word, one of the most wonderful words in the English language: Grace. It means “undeserved favor.” It’s one thing for God to show us mercy—withholding the punishment from us that we rightly deserve for our sins. But it’s quite another thing for God to show us grace—blessing and favor that are completely unmerited. It’s one thing for Jesus to rescue us from Hell. But to give us the gift of heaven, after all we’ve done to rebel against God—that’s grace!

And Jesus is not only our grace. He is also our truth. If you want to know the truth about why you’re here on earth, the answers you seek are in the Word of God. They are found in Jesus. If you want to know the truth about where you stand with God right now, the truth is found in the Word of God. It is found in Jesus. If you want to know the truth about how your broken relationship with God can be patched up, the truth is found in Jesus. And if you want to know how you can be sure that when you die you will go to heaven, the certainty that you seek is found in Jesus.

Once you know who Jesus is and why he came, what are you going to do with him? You can choose to reject him. That’s an option. Or, you can choose to receive him. That’s a much better option. As we look at Christmas of 2017 in our rear-view mirror, it’s my prayer that you’ll recognize Jesus for who he is, and receive the great blessing of becoming a child of God.

Dane Davis is the Pastor of First Christian Church in Victorville. For more information, visit www.fccvv.com  and join us for worship Sundays at 10 a.m.

Work Your Way Down the Ladder

“Your attitude should be the same as that of Christ Jesus.” – Philippians 2:5

In 1871, British author Lewis Carroll published a sequel to his famous book Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland. Early in the book—Through the Looking Glass--Alice steps through her living room mirror and discovers a world that is completely backwards. She tries to move forward, but she ends up back where she started. She tries to go left, and ends up going right. Fast is slow, and down is up.

It’s a funny thing: The Christian life is a lot like Alice’s looking glass world. In Christ’s Kingdom, things work on opposite principles from the world around us. For example, to gain a blessing, Christ calls us to give a blessing. To receive forgiveness, Jesus commands us to extend forgiveness. To grasp the unseen, we must let go of the seen. To gain life, we must give up our lives. To lead well, we must serve well. To be first, we must be last.

One of these powerful, upside down principles is beautifully exemplified by Jesus Himself in Philippians 2:5-11. The principle can be summarized like this: If you want to be honored by God, you must be humble before God.  Humility is the path to greatness. And we need look no further than Jesus Christ to discover the power of this topsy-turvy, upside down principle in action. 

Philippians 2:5-11 has been called the “Mount Everest” among the Bible passages that reveal Jesus’ character. These days it’s common for skeptics to claim that Jesus was just a good teacher or, at best, a prophet. But the second chapter of Philippians sets the record straight. The verses clearly reveal Jesus Christ to be fully God and fully man. He was the God-man. And the process of leaving heaven above to become a human being here below was the single greatest demonstration of humility in the history of the world.

The Apostle Paul writes in Philippians 2:6-8 that Jesus, “being in very nature God, did not consider equality with God something to be grasped, but made himself nothing, taking the very nature of a servant, being made in human likeness. And being found in appearance as a man, he humbled himself and became obedient to death—even death on a cross!”

These verses begin by revealing that Jesus’ divinity was an ongoing, unchanging reality. Jesus Christ was God. Jesus Christ is God, and Jesus Christ always will be God. Just as surely as your nature is human, Christ’s nature is God. As the years pass by, your appearance may change dramatically. Your hair styles and hair color may change. Your complexion may change. And the amount of trauma your bathroom scale experiences when you step on it may change. But your humanness will never change. Similarly, Jesus’ divine nature has never and will never change. He could never stop being God.

Yet God’s Word tells us that Jesus “did not consider equality with God something to be grasped.” Instead He “made himself nothing.” In other words, although Jesus Christ had all the rights, privileges and honors of being God, He chose to lay them aside for a season. Why would He do such a thing? He did it because He considered your needs as more important than His own needs. He did it because He was looking out for my interests, not for His own interests. Jesus chose not to exploit His rights and privileges as God because He was, in a word, humble.

He temporarily left his cushy home in heaven in order to be born in a sheep stable. While on earth, He momentarily laid aside His face-to-face relationship with God the Father and the Holy Spirit. He surrendered the majority of His power, intellect and transcendence. Clearly, while He walked this sin-cursed earth Jesus was at His absolute weakest. He became the lowest of the low and the servant of the servants. He descended the ladder of success to the lowest rung. And He did it all by choice because of His gracious love for you and me.

Honestly, some of us are pretty low on the ladder of success, but as Jesus stretched out His arms on the cross, He went even lower. He went lower than the blue-collar soldiers who surrounded Him. He went lower than the hypocritical priests who mocked Him. He went lower than the lowlife criminals who hung beside Him. He went lower than the ones who spat in His face, lower than the ones who gambled for His clothes, even lower than the one who betrayed Him for thirty pieces of silver.

Why? Simply because he loved us and wanted to spend eternity with us in heaven. Jesus went down low, so that you and I could be lifted up high. Jesus died so that you and I could live. Jesus endured the torment of hell, so that you and I could enjoy the peace and joy of heaven. Jesus went low, so that we could be raised high. The Son of God was, is, and always will be the consummate example of humility. He did nothing out of selfish ambition or vain conceit. He didn’t look out for His own interests but for our interests. And He lovingly turns to us as His followers and says, “Go, and do likewise.”  

Dane Davis is the Lead Pastor of First Christian Church in Victorville. For more information,

visit www.fccvv.com  and join us for worship Sundays at 10 am.