I originally posted this on my blog,Linda Kruschke’s Blog, for a “Thankful Thursday” post. But I really feel like the Lord wrote such a wonderful poem through me that I wanted to share it here at Broken Believers, also.
God With Us
Glory of the Holy One, robed in majesty Omnipresent King of kings, deserving pageantry Deity incarnate be, because of love for you and me
Willingly He came to earth, left His throne behind Immanuel, Son of God, seeking to redeem mankind To leave mankind dead in sin was not what He designed His love and mercy, on the cross, there with grace combined
Understanding His great love is for us what Christ desires Sinners to trust in Him alone is all our God requires
All this took place to fulfill what the Lord had said through the prophet: “The virgin will conceive and give birth to a son, and they will call him Immanuel”
“The central miracle asserted by Christians is the incarnation. They say that God became man.”
C.S. Lewis
Incarnation, the central Christian doctrine that God became flesh, that God assumed a human nature and became a man in the form of Jesus Christ, the Son of God and the second person of the Trinity.
Christ was completely God and fully man at the same time. This teaching is clear and I really can’t wrap my mind around it. Becoming man did not diminish God–if anything it was an addition and not a subtraction.
Now it’s true that Jesus voluntary set aside all of the perogatives of being God; He chose to lay His deity aside. Please think this verse through–let it sink into your hearts.
Though he was God, he did not think of equality with God as something to cling to. 7 Instead, he gave up his divine privileges[b]; he took the humble position of a slave[c] and was born as a human being. When he appeared in human form,[d] 8 he humbled himself in obedience to God and died a criminal’s death on a cross.
Have a blessed Christmas. Know deep down that He has come for you, He holds you and cares for you. He will never ever leave you!
“Thank you for making me so wonderfully complex! Your workmanship is marvelous—how well I know it.”
Psalm 139:14
“God is not a duplicator, He is a Creator. You are an original.”
-Reinhard Bonnke
The Bible states many wonderful things. One of them is that we are created in the image of God, and I’m quite certain that each of us are shaped completely different. I recently read that an estimated 117 billion people have lived on earth. That’s amazing; and to think we are all unique.
Sometime ago I found my Grandmother’s Bible.
I was somewhat intrigued, and I supposed that it might just ‘impart’ some special spiritual blessing to me. I sat down on the couch, and reverently opened it up. It was filled with wonderful handwritten notes.
As I sat down to read it though, I slowly began to realize that it was exactly like my own! The verses and the promises were the same, they had not changed. What was true for my grandma was true for me. That amazed me, and it kind of sent me spinning. But I suddenly started thinking.
Each of us struggles differently.
We endure depression, PTSD, schizophrenia, even suicidal thoughts. We struggle with different addictions and lonely divorces. There are those believers who are epileptics or disabled. There are some of us who have been raped or molested. I have a paralyzed right arm, and am typing this with my left hand. I also struggle with depression and anger.
Each of us are the same in a basic sense, and yet we are all distinctly different. We all have gone through things, some good, some quite awful. These issues are uniquely our own. Our “personal” testimony with God is unlike someone else’s. We respond to our different circumstances in different ways.
We are “snowflakes’ that have been artistically crafted. Our circumstances are individually tailored by God, who is the ultimate Artist. I opened this post with the idea that God creates “snowflakes,” and I’ve been told that every one of them is unique.
I do believe that when we stand before God we will all have these fantastically different stories. Each of us have found forgiveness, mercy and grace that the Lord freely gives us. As “grace-walkers” our life can be mixed with His love, filtered through a myriad of circumstances.
And they mix exceedingly well.
Reading the Word we must realize that each man or woman who walked with God had a different story to tell. We rightly consider them in amazement. And yet none of them knew they were special at the time, all they understood was “the daily grind.”
We can trust Him. We slowly begin to see, and understand, that there are implications of being ‘snowflakes.’ God took Joseph and ‘molded’ him by His unique circumstances, he went from prison to the Prime Minister overnight. Each of us has testimony of His incredible care.
“People are special, and human life is sacred, whether of not we admit it. Every person is worth fighting for, regardless of whether he is young or old, sick or well, child or adult, born or unborn, or brown, red, yellow, black or white.”
Each morning I begin my prayers,“Heavenly Father, I praise You and worship You. You are the Alpha and the Omega, the Beginning and the End. You are merciful and loving; You are Holy and Just.”
Then I think, almost without fail, that those words are never enough to describe who He is to me. Words are never enough to truly reveal the glory and majesty of our Creator.
Moses, Daniel, Isaiah, David, and many more wrote of the wonder of our God in the Old Testament. Their words, inspired by God Himself, make up ¾ of the entire Bible, which is no small book in itself! Still, although all the prophets spoke and wrote of God’s love, mercy, and holiness, the people didn’t completely understand the majesty of God because our languages are insufficient for that task.
A little book with big truth
I was thinking about this during my prayer time one morning, and the children’s book “Guess How Much I Love You by Sam McBratney came to mind. It’s a story about Little Nut Brown Hare and his dad Big Nut Brown Hare. Little Nut Brown Hare tells Big Nut Brown Hare how much he loves him: “I love you as high as I can hop!” he says. His father responds, “Well, I love you as high as I can hop,” which is, of course, higher. Throughout the story, they try to describe how much they love each other as Little Nut Brown Hare is getting ready to go to bed. Just as he is drifting off to sleep, the little one says with a smile, “I love you to the moon!” After he is off into dreamland, his loving father says, “I love you to the moon . . . and back.”
Then I heard God say, “I love you to the cross… and back.”
A thousand words and more can’t adequately describe the love of God. But this one picture — of Jesus on the cross, of His bleeding brow ringed with a crown of thorns, of His bleeding side — portrays it so well.
“God will look to every soul like its first love because He is its first love.”
I believe that’s why the Word became flesh and made His dwelling among us. Words alone were not enough to portray His love. He had to come down from Heaven and show us. “This is how we know what love is: Jesus Christ laid down his life for us. And we ought to lay down our lives for our brothers and sisters.” 1 John 3:16 (NIV).
I know I love God, but I also know that He loves me and you. He loves us to the cross . . . and back.
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This post was originally posted onLinda Kruschke’s Blog, and is offered here as a reminder of how much God loves the broken believers of the world.
Broken Believers 