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I want to share an
important message from God's word and account of Jesus' birth. Not
the message I thought I would give, but the message God has given
me to share.
This year as I have been revisiting the
Christmas story as recorded in the Gospels. My heart and mind have
been drawn to a powerful aspect of the account that I have never
really meditated on or fully absorbed. It has been a vivid
reminder of not only the significance of the birth of Christ as
Immanuel, but it has caught my attention in a new way.
When
we look at the first Christmas scene we tend to see the picture of
the manger and how Christ came to earth and began His pilgrimage
as Immanuel, "God with us", in a lowly manger in Bethlehem. But as
I read the account of His incarnation as a man, yet fully God, I
was reminded and took special note that His beginning was not in
the manger. It was not in Bethlehem. To conclude that that was His
beginning as Immanuel is a mistake and it overlooked something
very powerful and significant in our day and age.
Jesus did
not begin in the stall or in the manger. His entrance into
this world was in the womb! The womb or Mary who had
found favor with God, and was chose to be the one who would be the
entryway for Immanuel!
Let us read it afresh: Matthew
1:22-23 / "All this took place to fulfill what the
Lord had said through the prophet: "The virgin will conceive and
give birth to a son, and they will call him Immanuel" (which means
"God with us").
(Also, Please take a
moment and read bold Luke 1:26-45 to get the full
impact of this message.)
Here we see two radically
important realities.
1) The Holy Spirit
came on Mary and she conceived Immanuel! Jesus Christ! And it is
here in Mary's womb that Jesus' becoming Immanuel begins! NOT IN A
MANGER! BUT IN A WOMB!
2) When Mary visits
Elizabeth, upon the sound of her voice Elizabeth's baby leaps
within her womb in testimony of the Christ who is in Mary!
Jesus' life began at conception! And all of life beings at
conception. And while I know it is not a pleasant subject, and
even as Christians we often try to avoid it, this is a vivid
reminder of the horror of abortion where we take the life of a
child while still in the womb!
Jesus came so that we might
have life! Life to the full!
As we face all the concerns of
our society and the day and age in which we live in, this issue
should be at the top of our hearts minds, and prayers.
It
would have never happened because God's plan of salvation through
Christ is His Sovereign plan, but what would it be like if Mary
would have had an abortion!?!?
How can I even pray that God
would have mercy on us as a nation when we have no mercy for the
child in the womb?
 May
we seriously pray that in 2021 we will see God put an end to this
practice that is considered legal in society, but is still a
horrific crime in the eyes of our Creator, God.
Our HOPE
began in a womb. May the babies of the future have a chance for
LIFE and HOPE as well!
In Christ Love, Pastor Rick Messer
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