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 ADVENT 1 2023

On this first Sunday of the season of Advent, as I was worshipping in song, I heard a line in the Advent hymn that made me stop and say to myself, “WHAT?!?”

The line was that Jesus Christ came to earth to “taste our sadness.” I may seem poetic, but it is so far from the truth, I got stirred up! The Incarnation of God the Eternal Son did not happen so that Jesus Christ could “taste our sadness.” He came the first time to drink that vile cup of sin and death to its dregs and wipe the cup clean of the sum- total of the sin of the whole human race for all time.

Jesus Christ didn’t “taste, He drank, fully consumed the cup of God’s wrath against sin and sinners for all of us. Humanity’s rebellion against the love of God had sentenced us all to eternal separation from God, from all goodness to an eternal torment in the hell that had been prepared for the devil and his fallen angels. We believed the lie that life could be lived in completeness, that human beings could flourish separated from the One Who had created us and knew us and had prepared for us life in all its fullness. The fallout of the deception we imbibed as resulted in the folly and desolation of human history. We swallowed the satanic lie and spiritually, essentially died.

But God loved the world so much, that He gave His one and only Son to be the Lamb of God, Who would take away the sin of the world. God made Jesus Christ Who knew no sin, Who never sinned, to BECOME sin on our behalf on that Roman cross and to die the death we deserved, to pay the debt to God we could never pay, so that now, by believing in Him, we might become the righteousness of God by grace IN HIM.

The One Who came to rescue and redeem humanity is coming again to end all injustice, to right every wrong, to judge the living and the dead by the Gospel. Those who long for His appearing and have put their trust in what He has done and nothing else will enter the fullness of life that God has prepared for those who love Him. Those who persist in rejecting God’s mercy and grace by clinging to and trusting in their own abilities and achievements to make life work apart from God alone, will know a final judgement that will be beyond horror.

You do not have to perish, but can, here and now, begin to live eternal life by believing what Jesus Christ has done for you personally, by turning from self-centered madness and surrendering all of life to Him. He will bring you into His Kingdom and the Holy Spirit will live that Kingdom in and through you. He is coming again. You must be ready, and Jesus Christ is the only way to be prepared.



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