Acknowledging Jesus

Mathew 10:32-33

Acknowledge: To accept that something is true;

It is true that Jesus died on the cross to forgive the sin of all human beings. Human beings are sinful naturally. Though s/he does not want to sin but it is done naturally; therefor God sent his only begotten son to die for our sake. It is also true that he resurrected from the death and went to heaven in gloried body. It is also true that he will come again with mighty power in order to judge all human beings and give rewards according to their work done for His sake. The question here what we have done for His sake?

Jesus told that he is the away, the truth and life: John 14:6

He Jesus told his disciples that farms are a lot but farmers are few, after saying this, Jesus called his disciples gave them authority to drive out demons, recovery every diseases and sickness.

Jesus is sending us like sheep midst of wolf, the noun sheep is very innocent and naturally whereas wolf is very clever and cruel. Wolf always looking for chance to kill sheep and make prey for his hunger. Therefore we should be shrewd like serpent and innocent like dove. If you want to come to him, you have to take on your cross. Here cross means suffering and affliction.

32: “Whosoever therefore shall confess me before men”

Confessing Jesus to others is necessary to be made by every believer in Christ, for it is not enough to just believe in Him, with the heart, but confession of Him must also be made with the mouth.  It is important to declare our faith in Him to others, and what He has done for our souls.   We must declare, that Christ is truly and properly God, the eternal Son of God, the only mediator between God and men, the Saviour and Redeemer of lost sinners; through whose blood alone is the forgiveness of sins, according to the riches of grace; by whose righteousness only men can be justified before God; and by whose sacrifice and satisfaction sin is only atoned; that He died for, and in the room and stead of His people, rose again for their justification, ascended to heaven in their name, is set down at the right hand of God, and ever lives to make intercession for them, and will come again, and judge both quick and dead:  such a free and open confession of Christ ought to be made by all His ministers before men, and in spite of all the rage and opposition of earth and hell.

Matthew 5:11-12 Blessed those who suffer for my sake. 

“him will I confess also before my Father which is in heaven:”

Jesus has a perfect knowledge of them, and bears an affectionate love to them; so He will openly own, and acknowledge them as His ministers, and speak in the praise and commendation of their works and labours; though they have been performed through the gifts, grace, and strength, which He has communicated to them: He will introduce them into His Father's presence, and recommend them to Him, to be honoured, blessed, and glorified by Him.

If we acknowledge Him before men, we will get opportunity; 2 Timothy 2:12

To reign with Him,

If we died with Him; we will also live with him

However, verse 12 shows that ruling with Christ is not guaranteed for every believer. If we endure in confessing Christ in our words and deeds, we will reign with Him. If we deny Him by our words and deeds, He will deny us that privilege. The context of 2 Timothy 2:12 makes it clear that what Jesus will deny faithless disciples is ruling with Him, not kingdom entrance. (. 2 Tim. 2:13 "If we are faithless, He remains faithful for He cannot deny Himself.")

"Hope for the best, but prepare for the worst." -Bad things might happen, so be prepared.

Here is a powerful passage. If I deny Christ by my words and deeds, He will deny me the opportunity to reign with Him. Confessing Christ may lead to persecution and loss now, but ultimately it leads to blessings and gain forever. 

We must long to please Him and have Him confess us before the Father! What a day of rejoicing that would be!

Jesus said  ‘’ Simon son of John do you love me? John 21:15-17

Matthew 5:11-12 Experiencing jubilant during the time of suffering. It is so difficult to fell jubilant during suffering. Jesus says , it is really wonderful thing to get suffered for the sake of Christ.

‘’The greatest question of our time is not going to be North versus South, East versus West, communism versus capitalism, but the greatest question of our time is going to be CAN MAN LIVE WITHOUT GOD?’’ – Will Durrant

Acknowledging Jesus

Why is the virgin birth so important? 

Just few days before we celebrated Christmas having done different sort of activities on the Christmas Eve. We have been celebrating Christmas since we believed Jesus as our savior. Celebrating Christmas we suppose to feel a very special celebration.  During the season of Christmas, we share love by giving gift each other according to our ability. We also carry out different sorts of activities from our church i.e. distributing food items, clothes, education materials to poor, old people and orphanage as how much we can afford that people may know the birth of Christ. 

God has loved us unconditionally when we were in sin; therefore his unconditional love we would like to share to other too. Jesus birth was prophesied 700 before than Jesus to born. Prophet Isaiah foretold that a virgin shall conceive with a child. Isaiah 7:14, the birth of Jesus Christ was prophesied 333 time in the Bible hundreds of years before he was born. Our faith is based on this fulfillment of prophecy.

He was born in very unusual manner. His birth was virgin. As a human He had a beginning.  As a divine person He had no beginning.  It means that Jesus was both Creator and creature and if we deny either of these we miss the essential truth about our Jesus Christ.  He was the Creator and became a creature within His own creation.  He had created everything He used, therefore we have a problem. 

One reference: Once an American came to Nepal, during his visit bought two smosa for his breakfast. He put one his packet and had one. After reaching his country showed somsa to his boss, saying potato interred into it. Boss slapped on his check, and took out jeri from his packet.  

Why is virgin birth so important?

1.    It had to fulfill prophecy: Genesis 3:15, as satan enticed woman to eat the fruit of good and bad knowledge. God cruised satan there will be adversary between you and woman children, they will bruise your head and you will bite their heel. Isaiah 7:14, in old testament right from very first covenant God made with man, it was ordained that it had be blood offering for sin. As Adam and Eve did sin, God sacrificed an animal to cover their sin, it was not permanent sacrifice, and this sacrifice was to only cover sin, not forgive and wipe it way forever. Still many people of the world sacrifice animals thinking that they will be forgiven from their sin. The sin will not be forgiven but they cover their sin in material word. The animal sacrifice does not pay all the ransoms of sin, all the sins will only be forgiven and wipe out through the perfect and sinless man forever; He is only Jesus who is perfect and sinless in the midst of people born in this world. This sacrifice was foreshadowing of Christ sacrificing His precious sinless blood

2.    It identified Jesus was long waited Messiah: It was prophesied that it would be a virgin birth Isaiah 7:14, those who were looking for Messiah from studying diligently the prophesies concerning His coming would be able to recognize this was sign a virgin girl will be with a child. There is no any mystery in a married woman conceiving, it go unnoticed. But if a virgin were to conceive, it was either liar and not really virgin, but it would be enough to call attention for those who were watching for Him. As we see backbite of a girl who conceive before getting marriage still now a days.

3.    It insured that Jesus fully God and fully human: He was fully human; His physical body was like ours. He had received it from Mary. At the same time was fully God, with an eternal, sinful nature John1:14, word is transformed into physical body, stayed with us being filled with grace and truth. He is the truth.

4.    To ensure ‘son of God’: a. Jesus was only one who could pay for all the sins of the world, sins of past, present and future because He was sinless and perfect, and thus save us from hell but offer us the gift of eternity in Heaven. He had to be God, they called Him ‘ son of God’. Luke 1:35: Holy spirit descended onto Mary, the shadow of highest God appeared onto Mary and she became most fortunate mother of the world. Jesus came through her into the world

 History of Christmas

In the northern half of the world, in Europe, fertility cults were common, pagan religions, based on the idea of fertility and reproduction which is right at the heart of our natural life, the world of nature.  In the northern hemisphere there was an annual festival held on 25 December, long before Christ was born.  This festival celebrated the rebirth of the sun on which our whole life depended, crops etc.  The shortest day, (winter time) that is the death of the sun in a way, was 21^st December, so they waited a few days to make sure it had been reborn again and so celebrated the birth of the Roman world called the sun god, Mithraff, on 25^th December every year.  They celebrated with over eating, drinking and sexual activities.  It was a very indulgent festival.  They had songs, carols the sun being born again.  They had bonfires and they would cut down a big tree which they called a yule log and they would burn it.  They would celebrate it with evergreen trees because the deciduous trees would come back with the sun.  Most of what we celebrate at Christmas goes back to the pagan religion of the fertility festivals and we think it is Christian. 

The celebration lasted 12 days.  ‘ On the 12 days of Christmas my true love said to me.’  Every village elected one man to be lord of the festival and for 12 days he had the privilege of being able to sleep with any girl he liked in that community over that period.  It was practised long before Christ was born.

When the Pope sent the first missionary to England he landed in a town called Canterbury and converted many in that town, even the King, but when he reported back to the Pope, he said he was unable to take from them their mid-winter festival.  They were so fond of it that they didn’t want to stop it.  The Pope said ‘well bring it into the celebrations and baptise it into Christ,” so it has been a celebration that has been part of our Christian heritage ever since. ‘ If you can’t beat them, join them’ attitude was taken.  All that came into the Christian faith in England and became “Christ mass”, so instead of celebrating the birth of the sun,  ‘s u n’,   they were now to celebrate the birth of the Son  ‘ S O N’ of God and so it became known as Christ Mass and now it is called Christmas, so this was a Roman Catholic origin.    We are still doing it.    They brought the existing culture into Christmas to get them to come to the Cross.  Christmas is now a commercial opportunity and overindulgence.  It goes back to that Pope many centuries ago.

b. He wanted to tell us of God’s love for us.

c. He was the only who could overcome satan and all the principalities and powers in the heavenly realms and

d. He was only one who could overcome the last enemy, death.

Additional Christmas story:

In Turkey there was a Bishop called Nicholas, he was a very good man, full of compassion for others.  In his diocese there was a poor man with three daughters, but they couldn’t get married because the man was too poor and he couldn’t provide a diary to marry them off.  The Bishop secretly put some gold coins in a bag and smuggled the gold into the cottage of this poor man.       So Bishop Nicholas became St Nicholas.  But they didn’t say Nicholas, they said Nicho ‘laus’.   He became known as Santa Claus, so that is the origin of Santa Claus. 

It was America who invented Father Christmas with his robes etc in red and white that has been added.   Ruddolf is a mystery, probably Scandinavia.

Christmas has become a mixture of truth and paganism. 

Conclusion:

The virgin birth was so important to pay all the ransoms of sin of all humanity forever. It was only possible to God human in full of God and human nature through the womb of virgin girl; therefore it was foretold 700 years before Jesus born in the world. There is no one born through virgin girl, no one resurrected from the death and no one ascended to the heaven in physical body except Jesus Christ. Jesus is the only one who proclaimed the light of the world and the way, truth and light, no one can go to the father except through Him.