Relationship

Jesus was the Son of God (fully God) and the Son of Man (fully man). In being man, he lost none of his deity; in being God, he lived in full humanity. These truths make Jesus the only One who could die for humanity’s sin. He was sinless—the only One who did not have to pay for his own sins; he was man—the only One who could die as our sinless substitute.

Have you ever considered God to be as distant as the stars he created? Have you ever felt God to be a stern disciplinarian ready to punish you when you say something you shouldn’t say or do something you shouldn’t do? If you believe God is out of reach, then reconsider the Person named Jesus.

What does your relationship with God depend on? Things that you do? Things that you don’t do? Can you lose your relationship with God? Can you have a relationship with God and then do something that causes God to kick you out of his family?

Who are you? What gives you identity? What’s your brand?

What do you have to do to become a Christian? What do you have to do to stay a Christian? Will God’s love still be there if you don’t clean up your act? Is a relationship with God on-again-off-again depending on your behavior?

Mary was the first person to receive Jesus on his terms. Many people want Jesus to come and meet their needs, fix their problems, and heal their hurts. Their expectations are centered around what Jesus can do for them. Mary was different. Check out her response to the angel Gabriel, who told her she would have a child.

Living in the light is living in confidence. We can see where we are going, and we know we will arrive at our destination. There is no “we might make it.” We will experience eternal life in heaven with the Lord! How can we be confident of heaven? Check out today’s passage.

To introduce this devotional, I wanted to show all the different decisions that make life complex. There are multiple choices for everything from washers and dryers to tires for your car. Since you may not be in the market for a washer or dryer, and your tires are just fine, I decided to see how many brands of jeans there are. I found a site that provided the complete list of jean brands listed in alphabetical order. I stopped counting at one hundred brands. I was only at “C”! I didn’t have it in me to count jean brands starting with “D” all the way to “Z.”

In the beginning, “the earth was without form and void, and darkness was over the face of the deep” (Genesis 1:2). Then God created the heavens and the earth. God’s crowning creation was man and woman, made in his own image. God placed this sinless couple in a perfect environment, the garden of Eden. They had everything they could ever want or need. There was, however, one tree, the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, from which they were not allowed to eat. God’s instruction regarding the tree was to allow his creation to obey him or not. The first sin centered around the tree.