Matthew 1:21 "She will give birth to a son, and you are to give him the name Jesus, because he will save his people from their sins" (NIV).
We saw in the start of the book of Matthew the seemingly boring genealogy is filled with the promises of God, rooted in Hebrew Scripture, which would be fulfilled by the Christ. Now in this New Testament Scripture, Joseph got a wild promise from God! The promise came from an angel of the Lord speaking to him in a dream. And what was the promise? That Mary’s baby will save people from their sins.
I add the name Jesus is the Greek form of the Hebrew name Joshua, which means “YHWH saves.”
How did Jesus make it possible for people to be saved from sins? Romans 6:23 states: For the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.
Physical and spiritual death is the result of any single sin. Jesus died in the place of people. Jesus was the substitute for the wages of sin. Receiving the atonement Christ made results in life. That was His plan from the beginning.
How can a person receive this salvation? By believing in Jesus. The great proclamation of the Reformation was that salvation is by God’s grace through faith in Jesus Christ. To believe in Jesus is to receive His mercy. When you believe in Jesus, you receive the mercy and grace He wants to give you, because He loves you.
And the result is being baptized with the Holy Spirit, which means a journey with Jesus has begun. And on that journey a follower of Jesus is enabled to live a life becoming more and more of a loving person.
For me it is more comfortable to ignore the topic of sin. Yet facing the topic of sin is how to be free from it. And facing sin requires dependence on Jesus. We all need mercy, and Jesus offers mercy.
And we all need to improve. Thus we need to keep relying day by day on the power of the Holy Spirit. There is much in this world which seems normal, and much in this world which “everyone” else seems to be doing, but which result in hurts, be they slight hurts or huge hurts. Sin is harmful, and ultimately deadly. Believing in Jesus results in salvation, then relying on Jesus results in an increasing freedom from sin.
Hunter Irvine
Question for pondering:
1.) What is one wrong thing you did this past week? You can ask God for forgiveness.
- Take some prayer time. With the current coronavirus surge, problems galore are continuing. Just this week I learned of several people who were recently sick with COVID, or who are sick now. Please say one prayer for people who are sick at this time.
