Christmas Declaration

Merry Christmas!  This declaration is from the Christmas Eve service at Parkside Church in Ohio:

As followers of Jesus Christ, living in this world-

which some seek to control,

But which others view with despair

We declare with joy and trust:

Our world belongs to God!

God remembered His promise

to reconcile the world to Himself;

He has come among us in Jesus Christ,

the eternal Word made flesh.

He is the long-awaited Savior,

fully human and fully divine,

conceived by the Spirit of God

and born of the virgin Mary.
We long for that day when Jesus will return

as triumphant king, when the dead will be raised

and all people will stand before His judgment.

We face that day without fear,

for the Judge is our Savior.

He will heal our hurts, end our wars,

and make the crooked straight.

Then we will join in the new song

to the Lamb without blemish

who made us a kingdom and priests.

God will be all in all,

RIghteousness and peace will flourish.

Hallelujah! Come, Lord Jesus.

Indeed - He saved us from our sins - this is everything - this is the point:

He saved us from the wrath of God, which we all deserve because of our sin - we earned that wrath

YET, Christ lived that perfect life without sin that we need, yet are incapable of

AND He presented Himself as the perfect sinless sacrifice as payment for our sins.

Doubly blessed - He paid the debt for sins, AND lived that perfect life for us - Oh receive Him as your Savior! and live no longer under condemnation, but as a child of God - both born as His child and adopted into His family.

Titus 3:4-7

But when the goodness and loving kindness of God our Savior appeared, 5he saved us, not because of works done by us in righteousness, but according to his own mercy, by the washing of regeneration and renewal of the Holy Spirit, 6whom he poured out on us richly through Jesus Christ our Savior, 7so that being justified by his grace we might become heirs according to the hope of eternal life. 

Matthew 1:21

She will bear a son, and you shall call his name Jesus, for he will save his people from their sins.” 

Romans 5:9-10

 Since we have now been justified by his blood, how much more shall we be saved from God’s wrath through him! 

 For if, while we were God’s enemies, we were reconciled to him through the death of his Son, how much more, having been reconciled, shall we be saved through his life!

2 Corinthians 5:20-21

Therefore, we are ambassadors for Christ, God making his appeal through us. We implore you on behalf of Christ, be reconciled to God. For our sake he made him to be sin who knew no sin, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.

Galatians 4:4-7

Therefore, we are ambassadors for Christ, God making his appeal through us. We implore you on behalf of Christ, be reconciled to God. 21For our sake he made him to be sin who knew no sin, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.