Get ready to start a journey…a journey through the pages of the Bible and the pages of your life.
Today, thank God for his compassion – his affection that leads to action. Thank God for his grace – acceptance without condition. Thank God for his patience – his slowness to become angry. Thank God for his love – the love that sent Jesus to the cross to pay the penalty for your sin. Thank God for his faithfulness – He will always keep his promises. Thank God that through his Holy Spirit, he is standing with you right now.
God so loved the world that He sent His Son. Jesus, fully-God and fully-man, died on the cross as the penalty for our sin. When we trust in the Son, the Father accredits Christ’s righteousness to us and declares us “not guilty.” God the Spirit takes up residence in us and enables us to live a life that pleases God.
The penalty of sin is death, a penalty that Jesus took on himself. “For Christ, our Passover lamb, has been sacrificed” (1 Corinthians 5:7b). Because of Jesus, eternal death passes over us, and we pass over from physical death to eternal life.
Through the work of Jesus, believers have an eternal inheritance that will “never perish, spoil or fade – kept in heaven for you” (1 Peter 1:4). Our rebirth comes with powerful privileges.
Jesus didn’t stay an infant for long. It was time for Mary and Joseph to prepare Jesus to become a “son of commandment” (bar mitzvah). At that age young boys were obligated to observe the religious practices personally. So Jesus made the trip for Passover. Two decades later he would make the trip again, one last time, giving his life on the cross.