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But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness Gal 5:22 |
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Dear
Friend,
If you do not already have a habit of gathering daily manna the first thing in the morning (we can look at the example given to us in Exodus 16 and find the pattern for collecting daily manna), make it a habit. Establish your life and your schedule to allow you the necessary time to do your daily collection first thing every morning to give you the strength to make it through the day. And remember that today’s manna will not be sufficient for tomorrow; tomorrow’s manna must be collected tomorrow morning. Sunday, March 11, 2018
Today's Passage : Today's Passage:Subjecta:Jesus as Son of the Holy Spirit Bible Verse:Matthew 1:18-25 (Phillips NT) "The birth of Jesus Christ happened like this. When Mary was engaged to Joseph, just before their marriage, she was discovered to be pregnant — by the Holy Spirit. Whereupon Joseph, her future husband, who was a good man and did not want to see her disgraced, planned to break off the engagement quietly. But while he was turning the matter over in his mind an angel of the Lord appeared to him in a dream and said, “Joseph, son of David, do not be afraid to take Mary as your wife! What she has conceived is conceived through the Holy Spirit, and she will give birth to a son, whom you will call Jesus (‘the Saviour’) for it is he who will save his people from their sins.” All this happened to fulfill what the Lord had said through the prophet — ‘Behold, a virgin [or young woman] shall be with child, and bear a son, and they shall call his name Immanuel’. (“Immanuel” means “God with us.”) When Joseph woke up he did what the angel had told him. He married Mary, but had no intercourse with her until she had given birth to a son. Then he gave him the name Jesus. " Message:
Matthew emphasizes the teachings of Jesus, while Mark and Luke are more oriented toward the events of His life, and we see this reflected immediately by the absence of a long Christmas story in Matthew. To Matthew, the important aspects of Christ's birth are that he was conceived by the Holy Spirit, to fulfill the prophecies of a king and savior for mankind.
While we believe that Mary was a virgin when Christ was conceived, her virginity is overemphasized. (There are even those who believe — with fairly good arguments — that the Bible never comes right out and declares that she was a virgin, although the circumstantial evidence is extremely strong.) Paul, in his epistles, ignores the idea completely. Dwelling too much on Mary's sexual innocence has given rise to an unintentional undercurrent that a woman is somehow tainted by sexual intercourse. This is not the message of Jesus' birth.
The important point is that Christ was begotten of the Holy Spirit, and the only reason for Mary's virginity is to emphasize that point. She could not have gotten pregnant any other way.
This is the great truth and the first thing we should remember about Jesus. He was begotten, not made. He developed from a fertilized ovum, just as all of us; he was not made miraculously from a handful of clay. He was 100% human.
His biological father was the Holy Spirit of God, which brought the truth of God to men and women both directly and through the prophets. But now the Spirit has been made into flesh; a human being is God. Jesus can therefore say, “Whoever has seen me, has seen the Father.’ (John 14:9)
Anyone who teaches knows how important a demonstration can be. It is one thing to tell someone how to do something; but often it is necessary to show them how it is done. The Spirit had been telling people the truth and instructing them in how to behave for many decades; but only Christ, a man just like them, could demonstrate godliness. It is as if God said, “Okay, you're not getting this. Here, let me show you how it is done.”
Another aspect of the Holy Spirit is enabling people to know the truth when they see it; and Christ surely opened people's eyes to the truth, because He was the truth, embodied in human flesh. (John 14:6) We are all blinded by our prejudices; our hearts are darkened by our passions and our vision clouded by our sin. But to those who believed, Christ swept away all falsehood, for now they could literally see the truth. They could touch the truth.
And finally, the Holy Spirit is the bringer of life and, perhaps more important, the restorer of life. Think of Ezekiel in the valley of dry bones, and how the Spirit resurrected those bones into living people. (Ezekiel 37:1-14) Just so, the Holy Spirit is embedded in Christ as flesh and will resurrect the dead souls of humanity and bring them back to life.
Meditation : Prayer : May the God who made me, the God who keeps me, and the God who will be my Lord through all eternity, shine down His blessings and wisdom upon me like the sun upon a field; and may I keep Him in the forefront of my every thought and deed, throughout this day, and evermore....Amen |
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