"Salvation Through Christ Jesus Was Not An After Thought"

My boys and I went to the Creation Museum last week.  I realized while I was there what an appropriate time of year it is the visit the museum.  The 7 "C's" depict the history of God' redeeming work through Christ Jesus.  The birth of God's son was the fulfillment of a plan that was ordained even before Adam and Eve sinned in the Garden of Eden.

"Salvation through Christ Jesus is not an after thought." 

Even before he made the world, God loved us and chose us in Christ to be holy and without fault in his eyes.   Ephesians 1:14

Even before the manifestation of His creation God had a plan, even before sin had made its debut on the scene of that marvelous creation, God had a rescue plan for mankind through Christ Jesus' sacrificial life given as a pure offering of love for love.

Christmas time has the ability to usher in a new and refreshing view of God's salvation plan but if we are distracted by all the traditions we may miss the miraculous reality of the condescension of the Son of God, who left all His glory and submitted himself fully to His creation.

The conception, development and birth of a baby is already a miracle in and of itself but when God himself submits to all of the curses doled out to mankind by traveling to earth and submitting himself to the very throws of childbirth in order that you and I might be saved, now THAT is THE MIRACLE of Christmas!  Let us not lose sight of the reality of Christ's' condescension!

Philippians 2:5-11

Have this mind among yourselves, 

which is yours in Christ Jesus, who, 

though he was in the form of God, 

did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped, 

but emptied himself, by taking the form of a servant, 

being born in the likeness of men.  

And being found in human form, 

he humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross.  

Therefore God has highly exalted him 

and bestowed on him the name that is above every name, 

so that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, 

in heaven and on earth and under the earth, 

and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, 

to the glory of God the Father.  

Our salvation is a free gift, planned by God through Christ's death before we even were created!  Meditate on the reality of God's love gift toward you this season.  Have this in mind when you go to parties and while you make food and enjoy fellowship with one another during the Christmas season.   Don't allow yourself to become jaded by the commercialization of Christmas.

As believers it is our job to declare Christ to all the world around us.  To live lives that glorify Christ in all that we do and say.  What better time to have and seize opportunities to declare Jesus and his free gift of salvation to the world!

Father, we thank you for sending Jesus so that we might be saved!  Establish our hearts in grace that we might not succumb to the sway of the elemental spirits of the day that would try to seduce us into viewing Christmas as a curse and not the fulfillment of a great promise from You.