Christmas and Spiritual Rebirth

[HKHaugan]

Christmas and Spiritual Rebirth

 That Jesus was born of a virgin, counters everything a world-conditioned mind thought when He was born. It still counters the same mindset today. It is simply impossible for a physical conception to take place without the implantation of a physical seed in a physical womb. After all, how did you and I get here? It is this very reality that defies, confronts and challenges the biblical witness. Yet, that’s the very point.

 This was not a physical conception. It was a spiritual conception by the Holy Spirit initiating a physical birth. This is how God planned for us to be reborn, by spiritual conception. How Jesus was conceived is the way we are restored to God, spiritually conceived by accepting Him who was conceived spiritually and born to live in a physical body, the reason for His birth from a virgin.

 As an overall consideration to guide us here, think about this. If God conceived and then created the Heavens and the earth what would keep Him from having Jesus conceived by the Spirit and born of a virgin on one of His planets if that’s what He wanted? The same can be said for the Resurrection. The whole of His plan for us is one staggeringly magnificent spiritual undertaking when you consider just how lost humanity had and has become.

 There are many implications when we start talking about spirituality.

 First, wasn’t Creation started spiritually? Everything we see with our eyes, hear with our ears and touch with our hands was begun spiritually when God said, “Let there be…”

 Second, each of us was created in God’s image. What does that mean? OK, how did God identify Himself to Moses? That’s right, “I Am who I Am.” But Moses couldn’t see God, only hear Him. We too are created unseen persons, unseen ‘I ams,’ living in physical bodies. Our identity is an invisible concept in the mind, felt in the heart and acted upon motivated by our spirit, the threefold image of God. The very process of thought, attitude and motivation is the invisible process by which we live every day. When we think about doing anything, we ponder what ‘I am’ going to do in the next moment. ‘I am’ prefaces everything. We are ‘I’ centered.

 Third, to really understand what it means to be an image of God we look to Jesus who is the perfect image, the “exact representation of His being (Heb.1:3).” We see in Jesus the mind, heart and Spirit of God especially when He talks about being obedient to His Father’s will and only doing what His Father wants.

 Third, as an image God we are also relational. We don’t function well alone. The concept is an unseen one that drives us day by day. The very yearning we have to be with others, to love as opposed to hate, to be accepted not rejected, be productive and not sit still, feel goodness as opposed to evil, mark our unseen internal hearts’ desires.

 Fourth, as an image of God we are each created to be unique. God is unique and each person in Him, Father, Son and Holy Spirit, is unique. What they are as unique is also the perfection called Holiness that makes them One, unified and relationally balanced. Each has their role and at the same time uniquely One. When Jesus says He and the Father are One He is implying it in the Holy Spirit.

 Fifth, we have the need to be creative in what we do. It is not enough just to exist. We desire to ‘make something of ourselves.’ We like to discover, find unique ways to express ourselves. This is the drive in us to find ways to minister, see a need and fill it, to help others and be creative in doing it.

 Sixth, part of our drive to be who we are is doing life right. Part of our drive is based on hope. We hope we get things right. We want to think right, feel right and act right. Being right is probably our deepest need. It drives so much of what we do. This is where the Lord come in. He is the right One who alone got it right from the beginning. He was conceived and born by the Spirit of Right the Bible calls righteousness. Jesus is the Righteous One, the King of being right.

 Seventh, God is faithful. As images of God we can’t help but be faithful. Believer and unbeliever alike act by faith every day. How do we know this? Think of everyone approaches every next moment. They have no idea as to what lies ahead. The future is unknown. How we think and feel may dictate how we approach the moment but how we act in it is by faith. We make choices and decisions and then act by faith.

 There are a lot more qualities and attributes of God that could be mentioned and the imagery seen in us. But the big thing is this, the whole process of being, existing, living and doing is unseen. While that is the big thing, this is the big question: who do you trust to make this process work since it is in the invisible? This is the why of Christmas.

 No human being has ever gotten the process of being an image of God right. Mankind lost its rightness, the real way to live out the process. In Adam, self-centeredness called sin and its companion fear, entered the unseen atmosphere and all of us inherited it. Each of us was born alone, separated from God and one another. Evil, bitterness, hate, resentment, jealousy, envy, greed and a host of other like entities exploited our personal fears and we fell into controlling our selves without God.

 At just the right time, place and among the right people, Jesus was born to show what a right life looked like, felt like and acted like. Not only did He come to show us but He did one thing more. He forgives us and offers us an ongoing relationship with Him so that He can be our companion along the road of aloneness that we all travel. He would give us His Holy Spirit to be the guarantee of His presence in the unseen world behind the one we can see, the one that really influences how we process our experience. He gives us His mind in His Word, His heart as we pray and His Spirit to motivate our desire as a recovering image of God. Merry Christmas!