The Greatest Gift: Given By God

But God, who is rich in mercy,

because of His great love with which

He loved us, even when we were

dead in our trespasses, made us alive

together with Christ

(by grace you have been saved),

and raised us up together, and made us

sit together in the heavenly places

in Christ Jesus, that in the age to come

He might show the exceeding

riches of His grace in His kindness

toward us in Christ Jesus.

Ephesians 2: 4 -- 7

            Christmas is on the minds of most people as this is the season for this festival whereby we spend extra money, time, and effort to show love to another person.  It is a great time of joy for most people, and yet, there are those who are alone, even when family will not come around to save Merry Christmas to them, or they sit in a convalescent care home and the only celebration is what the nurses or aids can provide. Depression runs rampant during the great wonderful festival for the focus is on the festival and not the reason for the festival.  It is when we take our eyes off the reason that the festival becomes almost mundane, necessary or others would be feeling rejected.  God reminds us of the apostle Paul that he gave the greatest gift that could be given and this is the reason for this festival.  Some get caught up in dates, or other reasons why maybe they should not be celebrated on this particular day as though they know exactly when Jesus Christ was born.  They don't!  God in his mercy gave a gift of ever lasting life by forgiving our trespasses, our sins, and put us into his family together with Christ Jesus we are raised up together and made alive.  God showed His great exceeding riches which is his grace and His kindness at all this due to the fact that it came as the Only Begotten Son Jesus Christ by Whom we are able to be seen as forgiven and redeemed.  We have reason to celebrate beyond the Christmas tree in presence for as Christians we have the greatest gift ever to be given that gift to you.  I always find it good to study the Greek for their words often have a greater meaning than what we can supply in our English language.  The Greek word that we translate as made us alive is an interesting Greek word for it is an aorist word that means that this event occurred sometime in the past and it is in the third person so it's speaking of more than one person that has the word that we don't use too often except maybe in churches and that word is quickened, it almost has become a theological or, it has greater meaning than just to be made alive for the Greek word used here means to be made alive together and to be clicked in means that it is to make a person able to respond immediately and in a Christian since to respond immediately to spiritual stimuli.  There is no need for growth, nor is timely and necessary before one is able to walk in the Spirit for it is as Paul wrote here in the Ephesians that it is of the spiritual life with Christ that imparted to believers at their conversion.  This occurred in the past it has been given to you as a gift.  This is also true of the word that we translate from the Greek whereby we say that Jesus Christ through God raised us up together and made us sit together in the heavenly places as those words are also aorist so that this occurred in the past, that isn't already done it again it's in the third person, it is indicative an active.  This gift is your gift not due to anything you have done or will do, it is a free gift from God.  Why would God do this?  It is because God is rich in mercy and has such great love, a love that is that He loved us even though we were sinners.  God had no need to do is and you can't cause him to have a need to do this, for all of this is simply a God.  Is Paul here speaking about all peoples for all times, no, for he began this epistle by saying to the saints and a person becomes a saint by the free gift of mercy and love from God.  Proof of this is found in the net versus: "For by grace you have been saved through faith, and that not of yourselves; it is the gift of God and not of any works, lest anyone should boast.  For we are His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared the forehand that we should walk in them" (Ephesians 2: 8 -- 10).  God prepared all of this beforehand and we are His workmanship and that workmanship is manifested in our works that is a demonstration of our faith and even that faith is a free gift from God.  Do we have much to celebrate?  Yes!  God chose you!  God loves you enough to give you the faith which is a free gift not because you've earned it but because He loved you enough to give it to you.  Don't let the season go by and let it be just another festival, a celebration of gifts, food, great conversation, beautiful lights and music, which is all good in its place: do this: speak about the reason why we are celebrating Christmas and do this especially to your children so that when they grow up and be mature adults they will understand why we celebrate Christmas.  Praise God for His free gift, a gift prepared for you before you were even born.  Celebrate, enjoy, read the story of His birth from the Gospels and even go back as far as to the prophecy of His coming and make this more than just a simple Christmas day and remember the reason for Christians.

And in that day you will say:

            "O LORD, I will praise You;

though You were angry with me,

            Your anger is turned away,

and You comfort me.

            Behold, God is my salvation,

I will trust and not be afraid;

            For Yah, the LORD, is my

strength and song; He also has

            become my salvation.”

                        Isaiah 12: 1 -- 2

Have a very Merry Christmas

Richard L. Crumb

Alive In Jesus Christ By The Power Of God

Far above all principality and power

and might and dominion, and every name

that is named, not only in this age

but also in that which is to come.

And He can put all things under His feet,

and gave Him to be head over all things

to the church, which is His body,

the fullness of Him who fills all in all.

Ephesians 1: 21 -- 23

            Paul speaking previously and this with fluency and with copiousness of expression desire to express the exceeding greatness of God almighty power.  It is this power that God exerts towards His people, it is by this almighty power that God could raise Jesus Christ from the dead.  Now, there are those who want to separate Jesus Christ from God the Father as being to separate individuals one God, and the other a God, and even go so far to say that the Bible teaches that Jesus Christ is not God, but rather a god, and this is true there ignorance of Greek Scriptures and grammar for Paul in writing to Titus uses and it is this: when the Greek word "καί" and in English this means "and" in its place between two anarthrous nouns, that is nouns without the definite article "a" making both nouns refer to one single thing and here is a quote by Paul to Titus" "looking for the blessed hope and glorious appearing of our great God and Savior Jesus Christ" (Titus 2:13).  The God  does not have the article "a" in front nor in front of Jesus Christ and Greek grammar demands that when this occurs both nouns speak of one single thing or attribute and in this case our great God and our Savior Jesus Christ is one.  There are many other examples that could be used to put this blog does not allow for that but for those examples but am willing if asked to do so.  Let us think about redemption for the moment for this is the time., Christmas, that we celebrate the coming of Jesus Christ as a baby into this earth, being incarnated God.  Reality is redemption, it is not your experience of redemption; for redemption has no meaning for anyone in it till it speaks the language of your conscious life.  What does this mean?  It is by the power of God that anything exists in and it is by this power of God that he freely gives gifts: "Now we have received, not the spirit of the world, but the Spirit who is from God, that we might know that things that have been freely given to us by God" (1 Corinthians 2: 12).  Redemption is the reality given to you by the death on the cross by Jesus Christ who gave Himself for you.  To be born again, and this by the Spirit of God giving you the free gift of grace so that you can buy your will choose to convert to Him.  It is not by experiences that this is true for God takes you right out of your self, and then identifies you do with Jesus Christ.  You no longer pay attention to your experiences, for those experiences are not worth anything and less than those experiences keep you identified an associated with the source Who is Jesus Christ.  To try to produce experiences, as some churches teach people to do, is simply to produce that which is subject to a ham this will not take you back to the historic Jesus Christ who died to give Himself for you.  If you do attempt to make your experiences of a God when in fact they are only your subjective experience for does not have God as its source and does not have faith in God as a result and this means that those experiences are and tight Christian, no matter what visions you may have or had.  The Father put all things under the feet of Jesus Christ and made Jesus Christ to be that had over all things to the church.  You cannot damn up the Holy Spirit to produce subjective experiences for only Jesus Christ who is the head of the church can produce anything in you that is to be produced.  Jesus Christ must be the Lord over any of your experiences or you will be trying to Lord yourself over Him.  But church, which comes from the Greek word means to be called out or the assembly, is the body of Jesus Christ therefore you who have converted to the Lord Jesus Christ all our the body of Jesus Christ and all will fullness of Jesus Christ will fill you and you do not need subjective experiences to make you feel godly.  Here's what required of a person who is converted to the Lord Jesus Christ: you must be ruthless with yourself and not spend so much time talking about the experiences you may have had.  Faith that is assured of itself is not faith for the only faith that its crew is that your faith of God and there is no other faith than that.

            Without the power of God who came to earth to be in incarnated, that is to call himself with a human body of man so that he could pay the debt that was owed to Himself and be able to give you the benefit of that payment is the same power that has now made you alive and this life is not in this temporal world but you are made alive for eternal life.  Paul said under inspiration: "And you He made alive, who were dead in trespasses and sins, in which you once walked according to the course of this world, according to the prince of the power of the air, a spirit who now works in the sons of disobedience among whom also we all once conducted ourselves in the lust of our flesh, fulfilling the desires of the flesh and of the mind, and were by nature children of wrath, just as the others" (Ephesians 2: 1 -- 3).  There must be a surrendering of your will and you must deliberately commit yourself to Jesus Christ.  And this means you will transact everything on what He says.

            Two days from now Christmas day will be here and once again we have this special opportunity to be reminded of why we celebrate Christmas and it is not for some sort of joyous experience by receiving gifts even though it is a joy to receive gifts, and it is not just a joy of being around friends and family, and that is very good, rather it is because we are celebrating the coming of God incarnate to save His children.  This coming of Jesus is to be celebrated.  Spend time, special time, on that day to remind yourself in all why we celebrate Christmas and the power of God that has made to alive for eternity.

Praise the LORD!

            Praise God in His sanctuary;

Praise Him in His mighty firmament!

            Praise Him for His mighty acts;

Praise Him according to His excellent greatness!

                        Psalm 150: 1 -- 2

Praise the Lord who made you alive

Richard L. Crumb

The Greatest Gift From God

Therefore I also come after I heard of your faith

and the Lord Jesus and your love for all the saints,

do not cease to give thanks for you,

making mention of you in my prayers:

that the God of our Lord Jesus Christ,

the Father of glory, may give to you

the spirit of wisdom and revelation

in the knowledge of Him, the eyes

of your understanding being enlightened; or

that you may know what is the hope of His calling,

what are the riches of the glory of His

inheritance in the saints, and what is the exceeding greatness of His power toward us who believe, according to the working of His mighty power which He worked in Christ

when He raised Him from the dead and seated Him

at His right hand in the heavenly places

Ephesians 1:15 -- 20

            Christmas is three days away and the world has turned Christmas, a celebration that Christian view for the coming of the Only Begotten Son of God.  Christmas has become so commercialized, so much about partying, so much about giving of gifts and getting gifts, that the real meaning for Christmas is all but lost.  Yes, it is good to give gifts, it is good to enjoy this time and celebrate, celebrate family, celebrate friends, and most of all to celebrate our Savior Jesus Christ.  Yet, we suffer a possibility of overdoing the celebration to the point where the real meaning of Christmas is lost in the mad rush to buy gifts, to decorate, to show off as some do with great decorations on their homes, which I do enjoy, yet few on that celebrated day actually talk about Jesus Christ.  We speak of the baby Jesus Christ's, and we speak of Him in songs and Christmas carols, all may be good and healthy for those particularly are in convalescent care homes where they get very little attention from others than the nurses and aides, so a visit by those caroling is good.  But, do they actually hear the gospel?  Christmas is a wonderful time, a time of joy, and a time for celebration, and not to be denigrated, rather, use this time to celebrate one another and especially the coming of our Savior Jesus Christ.

            Well, this brings a question to mind: why did Jesus come to earth?  Why did I Jesus come many years before?  Why did he come in this era, some 2000 years ago and not come in our age?  Another question: why were you saved?  Why did Jesus have to come as a baby?  God can create so why did he not just create Jesus as a mature man? we could even get into the question is why do we celebrate the coming of Jesus on December 25th as some do and other religious organizations.  Many questions, not only by those who are not Christian but are also in many of the minds of Christians even though not as audibly spoken.  Well let's take a look at this why did Jesus come to earth?  First, God, incarnate, came to earth to satisfy His justice.  They see did by dining upon the cross as an innocent man who remains sinless in his entire life unlike Adam who was sinless but then sinned and had no way to pay back to God for that sin.  Man cannot pay to God this debt owed to Him, therefore, God came in the only way He could come to satisfy this debt, a debt that man cannot pay, so He paid it Himself.  So, God did not come firstly to save man as so many people teach and believe as though they are so important that God would save them.  God's justice had to be satisfied and until that satisfaction occurred man could not be saved.  God saves man by the only means by which man can be saved, and that is through the life, death, resurrection, and ascension into heaven by the Only Begotten Son Jesus Christ.  Now, through Jesus Christ salvation can be given to man.  You cannot do anything for your salvation!  So why did God save you?  It is so that the Son of God might be manifested in your mortal flesh.  God elects His children yes this means that God elects whomever He chooses to elect and when you realize your election then you are to bend your energy, your whole energy, your powers to realize your election as a child of God.  When you realize His election you should rise to the occasion of that election every time.  It is true you cannot save yourself, but this does not take you off the hook of what it means to be an elected child of God for you must do something to manifest this election, for you must work out that which God has worked in you. The question for each of us is are you working out by your speech, by your thinking, by your nerves, that is are you still trying to be the same old person and remain in your own way and if this is true then you are lying to say that God has saved you and has sanctified you.  We have to exercise ourselves in the order that the Son of God may be manifested in our mortal flesh.  God's only aim of life is that the Son of God may be manifested, and that everything else is placed before God, that which has a higher priority than God, vanishes.  We're not here to dictate to God, no, we are here to submit to His will that He may work through us what He desires.  When we realize this, God will make us broken bread and poured out of wine to feed and nourish others.  This is Christmas, this is what God has done by His coming.  We have much to celebrate about and celebrate we should do.  We should get together with family and friends, we should give gifts to remind us of the gift that God has given to His children and that gift is Jesus Christ and by means of Jesus Christ the ultimate gift of everlasting life is given to His children.  As Paul said: " that the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of glory, may give to you the spirit of wisdom and revelation in the knowledge of Him, the eyes of your understanding being enlightened; or that you may know what is the hope of His calling, what are the riches of the glory of His inheritance in the saints, (Ephesians 1:17 -- 18).

There shall come forth a Rod

            from the stem of Jesse,

and a Branch shall grow out of his roots,

            the Spirit of the LORD shall rest upon Him,

the Spirit of wisdom and understanding,

            the Spirit of counsel and might,

the Spirit of knowledge and of the fear of the LORD.

                                    Isaiah 11:1 -- 2

Behold the coming of our Savior

Richard L. Crumb