Tag Archive for incarnation

One with You in Christ

2018-11-26 Devotional with Hymn No comments

Father, in Jesus Christ
I can know You –
I can know You completely,
You who are
all life,
truth,
holiness, and
beauty.

In Christ, our knowing is
full and
organic,
heart-to-heart and
being-to-being.
I share Your life.
I breathe Your breath.
Your Spirit is
my spirit.

In Christ, I am one with everyone who shares in You.
In Jesus Christ, Father, You became incarnate in
a Person.
And as we are all in Christ,
You become incarnate in
a people.
All life is in You,
And in You, all life is
love,
joy, and
complete, eternal well-being. 

Listen and sing:
Hymn: See God in Christ
Recording
Printed Music & Lyrics

See the Father Walk among Us

2018-01-14 Devotional with Hymn No comments

Father, You are
high and holy,
transcendent and unseen,
great beyond all imagination.
Yet in Jesus Christ we see You as a
real,
touchable,
walking,
smiling,
speaking human being.
How amazing You are!
How can we help but
love You and
want to be like You!

Listen and sing:
Hymn: See the Father Walk among Us
Recording
Printed Music & Lyrics

As I See Jesus

2017-12-31 Devotional with Hymn No comments

Father, as I see Jesus,
I see You.
In Him I see Your beauty and glory,
Your holiness and love.
I see all You are
made fully human.

In Him I also see
who I am becoming.
I see all You have destined me to be.
When I am complete in Him, I will be
Your glorious child,
living in You and
loving You,
joyfully and forever.
I will glow with
Your holiness and
Your goodness.

Father, You are fully
showing Yourself and
sharing Yourself with me in Jesus Christ.
Praise to You!

Listen and sing:
Hymn: See All That Human Can Be
Recording
Printed Music & Lyrics

Christ the Tabernacle

2017-11-29 Devotional with Hymn No comments

Exodus 25 – 30; 36 – 40; John 1:14; 6:48-58; Hebrews 8:1-5 

God gave the Old Testament tabernacle so that
our senses, minds, and imaginations
might be permeated with
the glory of His presence.

Jesus Christ is that tabernacle perfected,
its intent completed.
The tabernacle was only a copy.
Jesus is the full presence of God
now living within and among us,
forever uniting heaven and earth.

He is the law of God,
all that is pleasing to the Father,
no longer engraved on stone tablets,
but written on the hearts of His people.
He is the Bread of the Presence,
spreading an eternal feast for all who come.
He is the Light forever burning,
illuminating the whole world.
He is the incense of God’s Presence,
the fragrance of His holiness,
the aroma of His unfailing love.
He engulfs us in the richness,
the texture,
the color,
the beauty of heaven itself.
He is the final, perfect sacrifice,
making us right with the Father.
He is the Great High Priest,
uniting us with the Father.

In Christ, the Transcendent God fills
our souls and our senses,
our daily routines and our highest dreams.
Jesus Christ enfolds
all we are in
all He is. 

Listen and sing:
Hymn: God Is with Us! Alleluia!
Recording
Printed Music & Lyrics

Fall and Incarnation

2017-11-22 Devotional with Hymn, One with Our Father No comments

from the book, ONE WITH OUR FATHER
John 1:10-14; Genesis 2 – 3 

He was in the world, and the world was made through Him, and the world did not know Him. He came to His own, and those who were His own did not receive Him. But as many as received Him, to them He gave the right to become children of God, even to those who believe in His name, who were born, not of blood nor of the will of the flesh nor of the will of man, but of God. And the Word became flesh, and dwelt among us, and we saw His glory, glory as of the only begotten from the Father, full of grace and truth. (John 1:10-14, NASB)

Father, Son, and Spirit gifted the humans with the freedom
to will and speak and breathe,
to live and create and rule.
They shared with the human beings the right to
think and choose.

A Rebel, a Liar, a Hater, a Destroyer,
a created being who had turned his own gift of choice
entirely toward himself,
seduced the humans into doing the same.
They chose
their own will,
their own wisdom,
their own sovereignty instead of the Father and Son.
They chose
darkness instead of light,
shame instead of glory,
a curse instead of blessing,
grief instead of joy,
death instead of life.

But the love of the One Being was
still full and overflowing,
still giving and longing for the creature He had made.
Instead of abandoning the humans,
He drew still closer to them.
From His unquenchable love,
the One Being came to them.
He didn’t send them a messenger:
He came Himself.
He didn’t just speak to them.
He joined Himself to them.
He became one with them.
He became one of them.

When the time was right,
the Father willed, and
the Spirit breathed, and
and the Word became flesh.
Heaven and earth,
holy and human,
creature and Creator
were again One.

We believe in one God,
the Father, the Almighty
maker of heaven and earth,
of all that is seen and unseen.

We believe in one Lord, Jesus Christ,
the only Son of God,
eternally begotten of the Father,
God from God,
Light from Light,
true God from true God,
begotten, not made,
one in Being with the Father.
Through him all things were made.
For us and for our salvation
he came down from heaven.
By the power of the Holy Spirit
he was born of the Virgin Mary, and
became man. 

–from THE NICENE CREED 

Listen and sing:
Hymn: Before the Starry Universe
Recording
Printed Music & Lyrics

God in Christ in Us

2017-11-13 Devotional with Hymn No comments

Father, I see Your holy beauty in Jesus Christ.
Though He is fully human,
He is fully,
perfectly,
gloriously You.

Father, You have given us His Spirit,
so display Him through us,
His Church.
When the world sees us, may they glimpse
His holy heart and
His holy life.
May they sense both
His divinity and
His beautiful humanity.
May they feel
His compassion,
His gentle patience, and
His generous heart.
May they taste
His joy,
His deep peace, and
His flaming passion for You.

Through us,
may they come to know Christ;
and through Christ,
may they come to know You.

Listen and sing:
Hymn: God in Christ in Us
Recording
Printed Music & Lyrics

See the Eternal Son

2017-10-11 Devotional with Hymn, One with Our Father No comments

from the book, ONE WITH OUR FATHER
John 1:1-9; 17:24; 1 Corinthians 8:6; Colossians 1:15-17 

There is but one God, the Father,
from whom are all things and
we exist for Him;
and one Lord, Jesus Christ,
by whom are all things, and
we exist through Him. (1 Corinthians 8:6, NASB)

See the Son in His eternal magnificence.
Nothing existed before Him.
From the very beginning,
He is with God, and
He is God.
He is the Father’s only Son,
one with Him in every way.
The Father and Son are two persons,
not interchangeable,
yet nothing separates them.
They are one substance.

The Son is the Word of the Father,
sovereign and
creative.
He is completely responsive to the Father.
All the Father’s purposes, all His heart,
the Son brings to full and perfect reality.

See the Son:
all the Father’s life and
all the Father’s light,
pure, unborrowed, uncreated.
See the Son,
overflowing with all the infinite wealth that is the Father.
See the Son,
totally invested,
totally absorbed in the loving will of His Father.

Father, I want to know Christ.
I want a living share in His relationship with You,
in His glad obedience to You, whatever the cost.
I want to share in His Word,
His death,
His resurrection,
His Spirit, and
His eternal glory in Your presence.
Father, I ask for a
constant and complete oneness with You
in Jesus Christ. 

Listen and sing:
Hymn: We Can Know Our God Transcendent
Recording
Printed Music & Lyrics

Ferocious Love

2017-02-27 Devotional with Hymn No comments

Transcendent Father, unseen God,
You longed for us to know You.
You let us touch You with our senses
in creation and
at Mt. Sinai,
through the tabernacle and
through Your prophets.
But all the while You promised to share Yourself fully through
a person who was to come,
a man filled with Your own Spirit.
This specially Anointed One, this Messiah, would
live among us and
rule over us.
His Kingdom would extend
through every nation and
through all time.
He would bring all the blessings You had ever promised.

As the centuries passed, Your promises of this Messiah became
increasingly detailed and vivid.
We longed for His coming.

But when He arrived, we didn’t recognize Him.
He was not what we expected.
You are Almighty God, and
Messiah was to be Your full revelation of Yourself.
We expected Him to be
a commanding leader,
a powerful warrior,
an unstoppable conqueror.
We thought He would be like a roaring lion that
no one would dare challenge.
We thought He would be fearfully holy and
bring fiery judgment to all the wicked.

But instead, He arrived as the weakest and lowliest of all human creatures –
a helpless infant born of
an unmarried peasant girl.
He wasn’t a king – not what we considered a king.
There wasn’t anything regal about Him.
He was a rural laborer with an accent to match.
He wasn’t a mighty warrior.
He was a gentle healer,
a teacher with little formal education.
He didn’t live in a palace.
He was a homeless wanderer.
His holiness wasn’t fearful or awe-inspiring.
He befriended sinners, whom respectable people avoided.
He socialized with them and received them warmly.
The only people He condemned were
the ones we considered the most religious.
He scolded them for their pride and hypocrisy.

This Messiah didn’t prowl and roar like a lion.
In the end, He died like a lamb,
meek,
silent, and
defenseless.

He gave us a living picture of You,
but You were not who we expected.
We expected to experience Your
fiery,
ferocious,
all-conquering power.
Instead, we experienced Your
fiery,
ferocious,
all-conquering love.

Listen and sing:
Hymn: All-conquering Love
Recording
Printed Music & Lyrics

Rejoice in Your Destiny

2016-12-04 Devotional with Hymn No comments

God made him who had no sin to be sin for us,
so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.
(2 Corinthians 5:21, NIV)

The Christmas story is so simple that a child can enjoy it, yet so broad and deep that no human mind can grasp it all. A Being so magnificent that He spoke the universe into existence from nothing—He merely expressed His will and it appeared—this Being became entirely human and lived among us.

We could see and touch the One who transcends all matter. What we saw, what we touched was love—pure, complete, compassionate love, in a world soaked with fear and selfishness.

This Being became humble. How could the sovereign source of all be humble? The immense God became small for us. Perfect wisdom, perfect peace, perfect love became small and simple enough for us.

In this One, our mortality took on immortality. The human has become divine. Humility glows with Majesty. Weakness is now strength. Our darkness now shines with the splendor of Almighty God.

Look at Jesus Christ. He has become what we can be:

  • a creature one with our Creator;
  • a child of man and a child of God;
  • thoroughly human, yet holy and divine.

Look at Jesus Christ and rejoice in your destiny.

O God, for me make
the waiting and hoping of Advent
no longer just a season,
but a constant hunger for You.

Listen and sing:
Hymn: The Lord Has Come!
Recording
Printed Music & Lyrics

My Holy and Human Brother

2016-11-20 Devotional with Hymn No comments

Lord Jesus, You bring God within my reach.
You are flesh and blood like me.
You experienced life here as I experience it, in all its
weakness,
pain,
struggle, and
imperfection.
Yet in You I see the transcendent God,
and in a form I can
understand and
trust.
Almighty, sovereign God is real to me in You.
I can begin to relate to Him in You.

Holiness is also real to me in You.
I would never conceive of holy living,
never dream of it or
desire it
until I saw it
so beautiful and
desirable
in You.
And as I trust You,
You bring holiness into my
innermost heart and
outermost living.
You make me holy!
I can hardly even imagine it, and
yet it is true.

You prove to me that I can be both
human and
holy.
You prove to me that I can be a true child of God
here and now,
in this present, evil world.
You prove it by Your living example.
You prove it by giving me Your own Holy Spirit
to live and breathe and desire within me.
And You promise that
what You have begun,
You will finish, beautifully and completely.

Praise to You, Jesus,
my holy and human Brother!

Listen and sing:
Hymn: Holy, Human Jesus Christ
Recording
Printed Music & Lyrics

« Older Entries