The Second Time Around

[HKHaugan]

The Second Time Around

What happened before Jesus preached His Sermon of the Mount gives us a way to apply a context to our own lives. Remember, Jesus was born into a human body to show what a real human being, that is, a perfect human being, was like inside and out.

It is necessary to see that He was not conceived in the usual human way, inspired by a sinful father and a sinful mother. It was not human desire, human ethnic motivation or a human physical intention that motivated His birth. He was spiritually conceived by the Spirit of God (Jn.1:13) in the body of Mary, a virgin. Now think about that. He was entering the world through a spiritual conception the same way the universe was created,---spiritually. It was a spiritual birth in a human body. The One through whom the whole universe came into being submitted to becoming part of His own Creation. That's what the virgin birth is all about.

Jesus' birth was a signature birth, the exclamation point on Creation itself, an affirmation that it was created spiritually. Jesus' birth was the resuscitation of humanity from sinking in sin like a lifeguard jumping in after a drowning person, recovering him to the beach, resuscitating him and giving him a special tank of oxygen for another chance to live. It's not that Adam' birth was not spiritual. It's that the physical was de-spirited and stolen, the devil being the felon.  Now, by belief in Jesus, the oxygen of the Holy Spirit gives us a spiritual birth into His presence.

This second time around has implications. God contemplated His Creation having a purpose: to glorify, anoint and share Himself by creating images of Himself that were like Him, 'images and likenesses' of Him through His Son, by the power of the Holy Spirit. That was Adam and Eve, the first models of His sharing intention. As they multiplied themselves they passed on the initial virus of sin. Thus every generation after carried sin's viral infection. Having been stolen they needed recovery, redemption and restoration from what had been spiritually stolen by the devil. So He sent sent His Son Jesus to break into the prison in which His images were incarcerated, locked up and chained by sin, sentenced to eternity in solitary confinement. He saved us from an eternal aloneness to bring us into His eternal family.

No matter how far we may have fallen or trouble sustaining our rescue or fighting for survival in a hostile world, He is there with us, loving us, urging us through the Holy Spirit. We can look forward with full confidence to being creative through the gifts He has given us. We are eternal spiritual beings living in the now. Every next moment is the new now we have been called to work in, to anticipate and see the Lord vibrantly at work through us. Each new moment is a personal gift to you and me. How personal you may ask? So personal that it was given as our personal possession to choose how to think and act within it as only you and I can. Now get this:

In all human history there is no one who can occupy the space, the time, the place or the consciousness you and I have as individuals. That's how unique each of us is. Pray about that and walk in it confident that there awaits the ultimate moment of completion in the Lord.