A Year with Jesus

Note from Jesus

Dear Disciple,

Please know that I treasure everyone who follows Me. I know that many in your world do not believe in Me and that many who claim they believe in Me really don't know what it means to follow me - to love Me, to follow My teachings and My example, and to depend upon God's grace through Me. Thank you for taking this year to walk with Me through the New Testament.

My birth into your world came at just the right time! You will notice that the Scriptures talk about My coming, My advent, as an intersection of the Father's time, human time, and My time. There are at least two ways to look at time.

One way you understand easily in your world view: using the Greek word chronos, time is linear sequential time that passes from second, to minute, to hour, to day, to year... That's why a technical name for your watch is a chronometer.

However, there is also another view of time: kairos time, again using the Greek word. There are special, God-tuned moments in time where more is going on than just the passage of time. In kairos time, God's timing and human timing intersect. Miracles can happen. World-shaping events can occur. Most of all, the Father is at work to bring heaven's salvation to earth through events shaped by heaven's grace.

When I was born Jesus of Nazareth - fully God and fully human, conceived by the Holy Spirit in My mother's womb - the world was in kairos time! Prophecy was being fulfilled. God had conditioned the world to be in the right time for My message to spread like wildfire. The Jewish people were hungry for an authentic messenger from God, so John the Baptizer was born miraculously in his mother's old age (Luke 1:5-25) to precede Me and to prepare the Lord's people for My coming. This was such a special time; prophets and even heaven's angels were standing on tiptoe for ages trying to figure out when it would occur!

Verses to Live

Yes, prophets and angels figuratively stood on tiptoe trying to figure out when I would come! The apostle Peter describes this beautifully:

Although you haven't seen Jesus, you still love Him. Although you don't yet see Him, you do believe in Him and celebrate with a joy that is glorious and beyond words. You are receiving the salvation of your souls as the result of your faith.

The prophets who spoke of this outpouring of grace upon you diligently searched and inquired of the Lord about this salvation: to Whom and to what time was the indwelling Spirit of the Anointed referring when He told them about the suffering of the Anointed and the honor that would follow it? The Spirit revealed to them they were not serving themselves but you. And you have learned from those who told you the good news by the Spirit that was sent down from heaven. Even the heavenly messengers [angels] would like to explore this news.
(1 Peter 1:8-12)

The time was right for Me, the Messiah, to come. God had conditioned time and was beginning to fulfill great promises made through the prophets. This was when I came into the world, as a Jew, born of Jews, born under the Torah and traditional law. This was God's time for Me to come for you:

When the right time arrived, God sent His Son into this world (born of a woman, subject to the law) to free those who, just like Him, were subject to the law. Ultimately He wanted us all to be adopted as sons and daughters.
(Galatians 4:4-5)

My coming was preceded by the miraculous conception and birth of John the Baptizer to Elizabeth and Zechariah - two old, faithful, righteous, and devout people. This was also under the rule of the Romans, and the Father used every condition to prepare the time for My coming:

Around the time of Elizabeth's amazing pregnancy and John's birth, the emperor in Rome, Caesar Augustus, required everyone in the Roman Empire to participate in a massive census - the first census since Quirinius had become governor of Syria. Each person had to go to his or her ancestral city to be counted.

Mary's fiancé Joseph, from Nazareth in Galilee, had to participate in the census in the same way everyone else did. Because he was a descendant of King David, his ancestral city was Bethlehem, David's birthplace.
(Luke 2:1-5).

With all of this, you also need to remember that My coming was for your benefit at God's expense! My coming was determined long before you were born, but for your benefit!

You know that a price was paid to redeem you from following the empty ways handed on to you by your ancestors; it was not paid with things that perish (like silver and gold), but with the precious blood of the Anointed, Who was like a perfect and unblemished sacrificial lamb. God determined to send Him before the world began, but He came into the world in these last days for your sake. Through Him, you've been brought to trust in God, Who raised Him from the dead and glorified Him for the very reason that your faith and hope are in Him.
(1 Peter 1:18-21)

Response in Prayer

O God, how can I, a mere mortal made of flawed flesh and blood, ever fully thank You for the divine plan You prepared, prophesied, and delivered to save me from sin and death and adopt me into Your family? Thank You. I trust fully in what You did in Jesus through His birth, life, death, and resurrection to save me. Thank You for this assurance and the foundation of my deep and abiding joy. Through the intercession of Jesus, my Savior, I pray. Amen.