I am going to continue through Christmas with Kenneth E. Hagin's "Faith Food" devotional concerning the Incarnation of JESUS that we are celebrating right now!
He Came To Declare Him
No man hath seen God at any time; the only begotten Son,
which is in the bosom of the Father, he hath declared him. — JOHN 1:18
How Jesus realized and appreciated the phase of His mission
on earth: Declaring the true nature of His Father!
A noted Bible scholar once said, concerning the Incarnation,
“We know now that God is like this that we have seen in Jesus. He is
Christ-like. And if He is, He is a good God and trustworthy. If the heart that
is back of the universe is like this gentle heart that broke upon the Cross, He
can have my heart without qualifications and without reservations. I know
nothing higher to say of God than that He should live like Christ . . . .
Strange, a man lived among us and when we think of God we think of Him in terms
of this man or He is not good. We may transfer every single moral quality in
Jesus to God without loss or degradation to our thought of God. On the
contrary, by thinking of Him in terms of Jesus we heighten our views of God.
All those who have tried to think of Him in other terms have lowered and
impoverished our idea of Him.”
Confession: Jesus has declared God the Father to me. I
know what God is like — He’s like Jesus! God is a good God — and I do trust
Him.
JESUS came to reveal to us the Father. He showed us the Father by example:
John 14:9 Jesus replied, “Philip, I’ve been with you all this time and you still don’t know who I am? How could you ask me to show you the Father, for anyone who has looked at me has seen the Father.
John 10:30 I and the Father are One.
He revealed to us the Father by His WORD:
John 3:16 For God so greatly loved and dearly prized the world that He [even] gave up His only begotten (unique) Son, so that whoever believes in (trusts in, clings to, relies on) Him shall not perish (come to destruction, be lost) but have eternal (everlasting) life. 17 For God did not send the Son into the world in order to judge (to reject, to condemn, to pass sentence on) the world, but that the world might find salvation and be made safe and sound through Him.
He revealed to us the Father by His own obededience!
John 5:19 So Jesus answered them by saying, I assure you, most solemnly I tell you, the Son is able to do nothing of Himself (of His own accord); but He is able to do only what He sees the Father doing, for whatever the Father does is what the Son does in the same way [in His turn]. 20 The Father dearly loves the Son and discloses to (shows) Him everything that He Himself does. And He will disclose to Him (let Him see) greater things yet than these, so that you may marvel and be full of wonder and astonishment.
AS you celebrate CHRISTmas with your loved ones this year, remember that the plans and purposes of God for JESUS were and are all for OUR benefit and for our SALVATION! AMEN! Here is Hillsong again with one of my very favorite CHRISTmas songs! "We Have A Saviour":
Shalom in Him!
