Tag Archive for incarnation

Holy and Human

2016-07-12 Devotional with Hymn No comments

Father, as I long to see You and know You,
You show me Jesus.
In Him I see the transcendent God
in a form I can understand.
In Him You are
human and
touchable.
In Him You are
my Father and
my Brother.

In Jesus, Your holiness is no longer
foreign and frightening, but
beautiful and desirable.
In Him, You prove that I can be
pure, yet
thoroughly human.
I can be Your true child
here and now,
in this present, evil world.
I can be
joyful,
loving,
peaceful, and
perfectly pleasing to You.

I can be one with You, Father,
in Jesus Christ.

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

SEE JESUS Devotional Tapestry

2016-06-23 Devotional Tapestries No comments

SEE JESUS Devotional Tapestry

Devotional Tapestries are short recordings designed to draw your heart and mind to the Living God. Each includes a devotional reading over instrumental music, leading into a hymn.

Listen to SEE JESUS Devotional Tapestry
Printed devotional & hymn
More Devotional Tapestries

The Creator’s Miracles

2016-06-16 Devotional with Hymn, One with Our Father No comments

from the book, ONE WITH OUR FATHER 

John 2:1-11

Creation shows us how
powerful, wise, and loving God is.
But often we see His magnificent works and
dismiss them as the products of
chance or
natural processes, or
we simply take them for granted.

Jesus came to show us what the Creator God is really like,
face-to-face.
That’s why He performed the Creator’s miracles
up-close and personal,
no stage,
no curtains,
no fancy lighting.
Nothing between Him and us.
He let us stand right in front of Him as, on a small scale,
He did what our Creator does every day:
He turned water into wine.
He produced a lot of food from a very little.
He stilled storms.
He healed diseases.

The Son showed us how marvelous and amazing
our Creator Father really is!

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

The Uncrossable Gap

2016-01-24 Devotional with Hymn No comments

God is holy.
We were born into sin.
It is all we have ever known.

God is pure light.
As creatures of the darkness,
we instinctively run from Him.

God is love.
In our selfishness
we are suspicious of Him.

God is Spirit.
To us physical creatures,
He seems unreal.

God is perfect wisdom.
To our ignorance,
He seems foolish.

God is all in all, and He offers Himself to us freely and completely.
In ourselves, we cannot see,
cannot know, and
cannot accept Him.

But now God has crossed all the barriers between Him and us.
The Transcendent One has taken flesh and blood.
Holy God is now and forever
wholly human.
He has come all the way to us in Jesus Christ.

Listen and sing:
Hymn: Eternal Light
Recording
Printed Music & Lyrics

You Call Yourself My Father

2016-01-10 Devotional with Hymn No comments

Infinite God,
You come to me
from far beyond and
high above my knowing.
You freely show Yourself to me through this world
of which I am a part.
The wisdom, the power,
the beauty, the mystery,
the pattern, the endless parade of individuality,
the love, the connectedness of all this varied life,
the engulfing shower of light,
the vastness, the intimacy,
the eternity, the now-ness –
they all speak and sing of You.
I begin to glimpse You and
wonder at You
through my sense and experience.

Infinite God,
personal God,
You come to me
in skin and fragile flesh and bone.
You come just like me.
You call Yourself my Father.
Holy God,
Loving God,
God of peace and joy and unbridled giving,
You say that I came from You, and
You call me back to You.
You only ask that I come as a child,
as Your child,
honest and trusting.

Infinite God,
personal God,
Father God,
I come.
Make us one again!

Listen and sing:
Hymn: My Loving Father
Recording
Printed Music & Lyrics

Make God Flesh and Blood

2015-11-29 Devotional with Hymn No comments

What an amazing concept! Our loving God, an infinite Spirit being, holy, unseen, and transcendent, made Himself a real human being. He longed for us to know Him. He wanted us to trust Him. He wanted to assure us that He understood us. He became like us in every way, sharing our existence, our life, our temptation, our pain, even our death. He became like us so that we could become like Him.

That is incarnation: God made flesh…God become human. God became incarnate in Jesus Christ.

Jesus is no longer with us in physical form. But God’s deep longing to be incarnate has not cooled. He still burns to be seeable and touchable. He still desires to be flesh and blood here on this earth, among the human beings who need to know Him and come to Him. Incarnation is still what He wants.

How can He be incarnate here? We, His children, His Church, are His incarnation. As soon as Jesus returned to the Father, He poured out His own Spirit on all who trusted Him. By the Spirit of God we make God flesh and blood, here and now. We make Him real to needy people. We are His face, His hands, His feet, His heart. We are His love, His compassion, His holiness, His peace, and His unconquerable joy.

Our wonderful God become seeable and touchable. What an amazing possibility! And each of us and all of us can play a part. 

Listen and sing:
Hymn: Be the Incarnation
Recording
Printed Music & Lyrics

The Christ of Christmas

2014-11-30 Devotional with Hymn No comments

During Christmas, Jesus is the Gift of the Father.
He is all the fullness of God embodied in a human infant.

A child will be born to us, a son will be given to us…
And His name will be called
Wonderful Counselor,
Mighty God,
Eternal Father,
Prince of Peace.
(Isaiah 9:6, NASB)

Christmas is the unveiling of
God’s greatest promise,
His greatest miracle,
His greatest gift:
His own incarnation.
All He is,
all His purity and perfection,
all His transcendent beauty,
became a human being.
The limitless God became the poorest, most helpless of all human creatures:
the newborn infant of an unmarried peasant girl.

Look! Here is the gift of Christmas.
Here is the wonder of Christmas.
Here are all the most precious treasures,
poured out on all who will receive them.
Here are holiness, wisdom, and boundless joy,
wholeness, harmony, and complete well-being.
Here are unity and individuality,
eternal belonging and a glorious destiny.

During Christmas, receive
the Gift of the Father,
the life of the Father, and
the love of the Father.
Receive Jesus Christ by simple faith.

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

The I AM

2014-05-04 Devotional with Hymn No comments

Jesus Christ is the Word become flesh (John 1:14).
He is the image of the invisible God (Colossians 1:15).
He is all the fullness of the Deity in bodily form (Colossians 2:9).
He is the radiance of the Father’s glory and
       the exact representation of His very being (Hebrews 1:3).

Holy God is now human.
The Almighty shares our weakness.
Our Sovereign is a humble servant.
The Unapproachable One grants us unlimited access.
The Transcendent, the Incomprehensible, the Unimaginable
has come to us, and
we see Him face to face.

Mystery and intimacy,
power and dependence,
time and eternity
are seamlessly combined in Him.

The Unknowable is knowable
by childlike faith alone.
The glory of the Infinite God,
of whom the vast universe is only a passing glimpse and a faint whisper,
is fully revealed in this One.

He shares with us
His wisdom,
His heart,
His breath, and
His peace.
He welcomes us with open arms,
holds us gently in His hand,
lovingly speaks our name, and
calls Himself our Brother.

All that the Father has,
all that He is, and
all the gifts of His magnificent Being
are ours forever in this One:
Jesus Christ.

Holy Father,
in Jesus Christ
You have removed all the barriers
between You and me.

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

Human

2013-11-10 Devotional with Hymn No comments

The Word became flesh and
made his dwelling among us.
We have seen his glory,
the glory of the One and Only,
who came from the Father, full of grace and truth.
(John 1:14, NIV)

God is holy.
We were born into sin. It is all we have ever known.

God is pure light.
As creatures of the darkness, we instinctively run from Him.

God is love.
In our selfishness we are suspicious of Him.

God is Spirit.
To us physical creatures, He seems unreal.

God is perfect wisdom.
To our ignorance, He seems foolish.

God is all in all, and He offers Himself to us freely and completely.
In ourselves, we cannot see, cannot know, and cannot accept Him.

But now God has crossed all the barriers between Him and us.
This Light,
this Love,
this Wisdom,
this God
has become a real human being.
This 100% God has become 100% flesh and blood
and has lived right here among us.
He has shared our daily routines, our temptations, our weaknesses, and
even our death.
He became a creature like us.

We look at Him in all His humanity,
and what do we see?
We see the glory of God Himself!
Creation, in all its magnificence, is only a faint reflection of all that God is.
Jesus is the Living God complete and at full strength.
He is exactly like God and exactly like us, all at the same time,
yet without our sin.

Because He became human,
humanity will never be the same again.
Jesus is the Second Adam,
the beginning of a whole new race,
a whole new possibility for each and every one of us.

Father,
You have removed everything that separates
You and me.
I don’t want to hold You at arm’s length any longer.
Help me to know You and trust You completely.

Listen…and sing if you want:
Hymn: You Came to Us
Recording
Printed Music & Lyrics

  Recent Entries »