He is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of all creation.
–COLOSSIANS 1:15
I want you to try to imagine what the world would be like if Jesus had never been born. It’s beyond our imagination, but just try to picture it. We certainly wouldn’t know God as we know Him now. In fact, we’d be fortunate to have even heard about the God revealed in the Old Testament.
So what changed on that first Christmas so long ago? W ell, when Jesus Christ came, the Bible says He was Immanuel— “God with us.” God was no longer a distant deity. He was no longer an unfathomable, unapproachable image. God became flesh and blood; God was with us! The Lord of all creation came as a baby, toiled as a carpenter, and lived His final years on earth as an itinerant preacher.
He is God incarnate.
That’s why Jesus would later say, “Whoever has seen me has seen the Father” (John 14:9).
When Jesus was born into the world, He was God! He wasn’t a man acting like God; not even God acting like a man; but God who was fully man and a man who was fully God! What Christ was seeing, that was God seeing. And when Christ was walking, that was God walking!
If Jesus hadn’t come, and if He wasn’t God, we’d never have the knowledge of God we have today. So thank God for sending Jesus to Bethlehem all those years ago so that you might have a clear picture of a God who loves you unconditionally!
(To obtain a free copy of “The Cost of Christmas,” a 25-day advent devotional go to jackgraham.org, call 800-414-7693, or request it online at email@powerpoint.org.)
