Category Archives: Jesus

Christmas Verses – The First Coming #3

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Genesis 28:14 NIV

Your descendants will be like the dust of the earth, and you will spread out to the west and to the east, to the north and to the south. All peoples on earth will be blessed through you and your offspring.

This promise was to Jacob as he was running away from Esau.  This prophecy is a continuation of the word given to Abraham and Isaac, but it does reassure Jacob of the blessing and birthright.  That word has proven true, the descendants of his children have blessed the world plus it is a predication of Jesus.

Christmas Verses – The First Coming #2

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  1. Revelations 12:1-5 NIV

A great sign appeared in heaven: a woman clothed with the sun, with the moon under her feet and a crown of twelve stars on her head. 2 She was pregnant and cried out in pain as she was about to give birth. 3 Then another sign appeared in heaven: an enormous red dragon with seven heads and ten horns and seven crowns on its heads. 4 Its tail swept a third of the stars out of the sky and flung them to the earth. The dragon stood in front of the woman who was about to give birth, so that it might devour her child the moment he was born. 5 She gave birth to a son, a male child, who “will rule all the nations with an iron

scepter.”[a] And her child was snatched up to God and to his throne.

This complex sign signals speaks of Creation, His birth in Bethlehem, and the future. The woman resounds with images of the fourth day of Creation: she is wrapped in the greater light (it rules the day), she has conquered or is greater than the lesser light (ruler of the night), and her symbol of authority/ right to rule is twelve stars.  The devil/Herod is wanting to devour the Son.  Because the Son was born and snatched up to God verse 10 happened: salvation, power, the Kingdom of God, and the authority of His Christ.

PIC = www.LumoProject.com.

Christmas Verses – The First Coming #1

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Genesis 3:15 NIV

15 And I will put enmity
between you and the woman,
and between your offspring[a] and hers;
he will crush[b] your head,
and you will strike his heel.”

This verse is unique because it is said to the snake, and has a curse and a promise in it. As I have looked at many of these Christmas verses most of them, like this one, has a component of ruling and government.

The Garden was lost, Adam had followed Eve in eating the forbidden fruit.  Paradise would be guarded and barred to them, but God the Eternal gave hope to mankind.  A child would be born that would crush the snake and restore man’s fellowship.  Don’t lose sight that it also predicts that the Child would be injured, which for us means HEALING.

Christmas Verses – The First Coming

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This Advent I will list SOME of the verses that relate to the First Coming of Jesus.  There are others and some of them overlap or are repeats.  There are First Coming verses that connect directly to the Cross or some aspect of His life, so I may have not included them or the entire reference.  I did not include many of the “births” of characters in the Bible even though some of them are shadows of Jesus.  I tried to keep close to the number of days that are in Advent, which this year (2017) is twenty-one, there are four Sundays which is one way to count the days for this season.

Christmas Characters – Mary

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As I read the Christmas story looking at Mary the thing that most impressed me about her was that she served Elizabeth for three months.  However they were related, it was important for Mary to share this time with her friend and relative. (I do wonder if part of the reason for this visit was not to strengthen her faith for what lay ahead of her.)mary-and-elizabeth

The Cost

This trip came at a cost.  It was the first of four times that she would go between Nazareth and the land of Judah in nine months.  It is approximately eighty to ninety miles and she probably did the first two on foot; that would have been about a week’s worth of walking.  The journey took her through many of the historical sites of Israel and through Jerusalem.  Just walking would have been hard enough, even though she was young, but there were also the chemical changes going on inside her.  Another cost was her reputation!  She left Nazareth not showing that she was pregnant and came back with a three-month baby bump, you know tongues were wagging.   Joseph considered divorce.  Being stoned to death was a possibility. Just a little pressure for saying YES to God.

Mary and Gabriel

Mary was greatly troubled.  I don’t really blame her.  Suddenly there is a man in your room and he is happily greeting you saying you are highly favored of the Lord.  “Greatly troubled” is diatarasso it is used once in the New Testament and gives the idea she was very upset. When “greeting” is used elsewhere in Luke it is aspasmos which is just the concept of saying hello.   It seems that the entire conversation may not have been recorded but it would seem likely that Gabriel introduced himself as he did with Zechariah.

I have tried to connect Zachariah’s service with the birth of Jesus in the Post – The Day of Atonement, Passover, and Epiphany.  The results are not what I expected about the birth time of Jesus.  The legend/history is better than I thought.

Mary had heard the Scriptures, she knew like every other virgin of the family of David that she was a candidate to carry the Messiah.  Now it was happening to HER!  Luke 3:31 cropped-jesus-2.jpgputs her in a branch of the family that came through Nathan and the only connection to the “kingly line” was with Zerubbabel and Shealtiel.  The greeting sounded like the one given to Gideon (Judges 6:12), who also had family trouble because he accepted the task he was given.

Pondering

Mary was a reflective person who considered her place in history by what God had given her to do.  In Luke 2: 19 she is “treasuring all of these happenings and pondering them.”  She would have been the only source of these happenings for Luke and Matthew.

Her song of praise in 1:46 showed a lot of thought and awareness of Scripture and the events of her time.  I think the week-long walk may have helped the composing of her song.

http://www.freebibleimages.org/illustrations/