Show Notes
The Christmas story never grows old. From an angel announcing to teenage Mary that she’d become pregnant with the Son of God to an angel telling Joseph he’d have a son but not by him, you’re hooked. Then myriad angels announce Jesus’ birth to minimum-wage shepherds, while great men travel 715 miles not just to see a baby, but to worship Him. The Gospels show the human perspective, but what about God’s viewpoint? Hebrews 1 gives us exactly that. It was written to Jews who believed intellectually that Jesus was the promised Messiah, but needed final convincing that He wasn’t just the human Messiah, but God Himself. The doctrine of the incarnation, which is a word from Latin meaning “becoming flesh,” teaches this. Jesus Christ is one person with two distinct natures, fully human and fully divine. He’s not two people but one. He’s the same person both before and after the incarnation. The difference is that before, He had one nature (divine); but after, He had two (divine and human). The one who sits on the throne of the universe today is God and man. The man who walked on earth in time is the God who is to be worshipped forever. When you see Jesus for who He really is, you discover God’s complete message for you.
More from Touching Lives with Dr. James Merritt Audio Podcast
In 1968, marathon runner John Stephen Akhwari of Tanzania crossed the Olympic finish line more than an hour after the winner, but it is still talked about today. His leg was bleeding, his knee dislocated, and his shoulder injured from a fall on the course. Only a few thousand people were left in the stands as the sun went down and he hobbled across the line. When someone asked why he didn’t quit, he said, “My country did not send me 5,000 miles to start the race; they sent me 5,000 miles to finish the race.” The Bible describes your life as a race, and the moment you give your life to Jesus Christ, you no longer run it for yourself; you run it for Him. First John 5 tells us that everyone born of God can overcome anything the world throws at them. As you look at three things you need to do to overcome, you will find exactly what it takes to finish well.
In the time it takes you to read this paragraph, your body will produce 17 million red blood cells. That’s double the population of New York City. And that blood already knows you better than your brain does, traveling 60,000 miles through your body and touching every part of you except the cornea of your eye. Without blood, there is no life in your body. The same is true spiritually. Years ago in seminary, a professor told me he was sick of what he called slaughterhouse religion and wanted the blood of Jesus taken out of our pulpits. But just as your body dies without blood, the body of Christ dies without His blood too. First John 1:7 says, “But if we walk in the light, as he is in the light, we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus his Son cleanses us from all sin” (ESV)
Every day around the world, the words “I love you” are spoken billions of times, and it is easy to see why, once you look at how much love dominates our culture. Of the millions of books published worldwide each year, 62.5% have love as a central theme, and roughly half of all major movies and songs released globally center on love as well. Psychiatrists and psychologists have found that among our greatest human needs are to be wanted, needed, and loved and that people who feel loved carry a 50% lower risk of depression. But no one knows more about love than the God who created it, and no author in Scripture wrote about love more than the apostle John, who used the word 85 times and gave us the most famous three words on the subject: “God is love” (1 John 4:8, 16, ESV). John now turns from our love for God to God’s love for us, showing us four ways we can know that love is real.
In 1848, gold was discovered at Sutter’s Mill in California. By 1849, more than 100,000 prospectors had flooded the state, hoping to strike it rich. Many of these inexperienced miners were badly fooled when they mistook pyrite for real gold. It shined. It sparkled. It looked valuable. But it was not gold, so it earned the name “fool’s gold.” To tell the difference, prospectors learned to test it: Real gold dents when you bite it or press it with a knife, while pyrite cracks. Real gold leaves a yellow streak when rubbed on porcelain, while pyrite leaves a black one.
Dr. Martin Luther King said, “Love is the most powerful force in the universe,” and that is true, not just because he said it, but because Jesus said the same thing in God’s Word when He gave us the two greatest commandments: Love God and love your neighbor. If everyone truly loved this way, we would not need jails, weapons, or courts, because love never fails.