8 And there were shepherds living out in the fields nearby, keeping watch over their flocks at night. 9 An angel of the Lord appeared to them, and the glory of the Lord shone around them, and they were terrified. 10 But the angel said to them, “Do not be afraid. I bring you good news of great joy that will be for all the people. 11 Today in the town of David a Savior has been born to you; he is Christ the Lord.
25 Now there was a man in Jerusalem called Simeon, who was righteous and devout. He was waiting for the consolation of Israel, and the Holy Spirit was upon him. 26 It had been revealed to him by the Holy Spirit that he would not die before he had seen the Lord's Christ. 27 Moved by the Spirit, he went into the temple courts. When the parents brought in the child Jesus to do for him what the custom of the Law required, 28 Simeon took him in his arms and praised God, saying: 29 “Sovereign Lord, as you have promised, you now dismiss your servant in peace. 30 For my eyes have seen your salvation, 31 which you have prepared in the sight of all people, 32 a light for revelation to the Gentiles and for glory to your people Israel.” 33 The child's father and mother marveled at what was said about him. 34 Then Simeon blessed them and said to Mary, his mother: “This child is destined to cause the falling and rising of many in Israel, and to be a sign that will be spoken against, 35 so that the thoughts of many hearts will be revealed. And a sword will pierce your own soul too.”
1 Who has believed our message and to whom has the arm of the LORD been revealed? 2 He grew up before him like a tender shoot, and like a root out of dry ground. He had no beauty or majesty to attract us to him, nothing in his appearance that we should desire him. 3 He was despised and rejected by men, a man of sorrows, and familiar with suffering. Like one from whom men hide their faces he was despised, and we esteemed him not. 4 Surely he took up our infirmities and carried our sorrows, yet we considered him stricken by God, smitten by him, and afflicted. 5 But he was pierced for our transgressions, he was crushed for our iniquities; the punishment that brought us peace was upon him, and by his wounds we are healed. 6 We all, like sheep, have gone astray, each of us has turned to his own way; and the LORD has laid on him the iniquity of us all.
21 God made him who had no sin to be sin for us, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.
13 When you were dead in your sins and in the uncircumcision of your sinful nature, God made you alive with Christ. He forgave us all our sins, 14 having canceled the written code, with its regulations, that was against us and that stood opposed to us; he took it away, nailing it to the cross. 15 And having disarmed the powers and authorities, he made a public spectacle of them, triumphing over them by the cross.
5 Your attitude should be the same as that of Christ Jesus: 6 Who, being in very nature God, did not consider equality with God something to be grasped, 7 but made himself nothing, taking the very nature of a servant, being made in human likeness. 8 And being found in appearance as a man, he humbled himself and became obedient to death--even death on a cross!
33 Who will bring any charge against those whom God has chosen? It is God who justifies. 34 Who is he that condemns? Christ Jesus, who died--more than that, who was raised to life--is at the right hand of God and is also interceding for us. 35 Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall trouble or hardship or persecution or famine or nakedness or danger or sword? 36 As it is written: “For your sake we face death all day long; we are considered as sheep to be slaughtered.” 37 No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us. 38 For I am convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither the present nor the future, nor any powers, 39 neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord.
“Our God is a God who not merely restores, but takes up our mistakes and follies into His plan for us and brings good out of them.” J.I. Packer
“When God fixes our position for us, we may rest assured that it is a wise and salutary one; and even when we foolishly and willfully choose a position for ourselves, He most graciously overrules our folly, and causes the influences of our self-chosen circumstances to work for our spiritual benefit.” One Older Commentator of Exodus 14
“The supreme happiness of life,” Victor Hugo said, “is the conviction that we are loved”....Unfortunately, many people go through life feeling unloved – and unlovable...No matter the reason, your feelings aren’t telling you the truth! God loves you, and if you begin to see yourself the way God sees you, your attitudes will begin to change. If He didn’t love you, would Christ have been willing to die for you? But He did! The Bible says, “By this we know love, because He laid down His life for us” (1 John 3:16). God loves you. Hammer that truth into your head and mind every day. It will make all the difference.” Billy Graham
“The only ground on which God can forgive our sin and reinstate us to His favor is through the Cross of Christ. There is no other way! Forgiveness, which is so easy for us to accept, cost the agony at Calvary. We should never take the forgiveness of sin, the gift of the Holy Spirit, and our sanctification in simple faith, and then forget the enormous cost to God that made all of this ours. Forgiveness is the divine miracle of grace. The cost to God was the Cross of Christ. To forgive sin, while remaining a holy God, this price had to be paid. Never accept a view of the fatherhood of God if it blots out the atonement. The revealed truth of God is that without the atonement He cannot forgive – He would contradict His nature if He did. The only way we can be forgiven is by being brought back to God through the atonement of the Cross. God’s forgiveness is possible only in the supernatural realm......Once you realize all that it cost God to forgive you, you will be held as in a vise, constrained by the love of God.” Oswald Chambers
“God looked on Christ as if Christ had been sin; not as if He had taken up the sins of His people, or as if they were laid on Him, though that were true, but as if He Himself had positively been that noxious—that God-hating—that soul-damning thing, called sin. When the Judge of all the earth said, ‘Where is Sin?’ Christ presented himself...what a grim picture that is, to conceive of sin gathered up into one mass—murder, lust and stealing, and adultery...and the Father looked on Christ as if He were that mass of sin. He was not sin, but the Father looked on upon Him as made sin for us. Christ stands in our place, assumes our guilt, takes on our iniquity and God treats Him as if He had been sin...How can any punishment fall on that man who ceases to possess sin, because his sin was cast upon Christ and Christ has suffered in his place? Oh, glorious triumph of faith to be able to say, whenever I feel the guilt of sin, whenever conscience pricks me, ‘Yes, it is true but my Lord is answerable for it all, for He has taken it all upon Himself and suffered in my place.” Charles Spurgeon
“This knowledge [of our own sinfulness], though it strikes man with terror and overwhelms him with despair, is nevertheless necessary for us in order that, stripped of our own righteousness, cast down from confidence in our own power, deprived of all expectation of life, we may learn through the knowledge of our own poverty, misery and disgrace to prostrate ourselves before the Lord, and by the awareness of our own wickedness, powerlessness, and ruin may give all credit for holiness, power and salvation to him.” John Calvin
“Costly grace is the Gospel which must be sought again and again, the gift which must be asked for, the door at which a man must knock. Such grace is costly because it calls us to follow, and it is grace because it calls us to follow Jesus Christ. It is costly because it costs a man his life, and it is grace because it gives a man the only true life. It is costly because it condemns sin, and grace because it justifies the sinner. Above all, it is costly because it cost God the life of his Son. ‘Ye were bought at a price,’ and what has cost God much cannot be cheap for us. Above all, it is grace because God did not reckon his Son too dear a price to pay for our life, but delivered him up for us. Costly grace is the incarnation of God.” Dietrich Bonhoeffer
“If the Sovereign, Omnipotent, Omniscient God is on our side, as His child, seriously, what do we have to fear? He, Who loves us with an everlasting love, Who ever has His eye upon us, Who never leaves us nor forsakes us, Who not only died to save us but has also given us the Grand Deposit of the precious Holy Spirit to empower us to walk in a manner worthy of our high calling all the way Home – this God, this very God is for us and not against us. No matter what the circumstances of your life may be bellowing out. The world shouts fear while God whispers peace. He will never let the righteous fall and we can trust Him with our lives and with the lives of all we love and hold dear.” BHY
“Against me earth and hell combine, But on my side is power divine; Jesus is all, and He is mine!” Charles H. Spurgeon
“We will never put God in a nice little convenient proverbial box of our own makings and imaginations. He is so totally other – His thoughts are not our thoughts neither His ways our ways. His paths for us are always perfect and pleasing and have our best interest at heart though unimaginatively hard. His ways may not lead us into comfort and painlessness. Indeed, His children should not expect to be carried into heaven on a bed of down though He can do so if He so desires. More often than not, His ways lead us into circumstances ‘far beyond our ability to endure’ to demonstrate to the unbelieving world (and to ourselves for that matter) His power in our lives whether it be by miraculously changing our circumstances or just as miraculously (or even more so), by changing our hearts through the circumstances. His good ways will always lead us on paths of conformation to the fullness of His precious Son – that’s the purpose. He wants us to be like Jesus – whatever it takes - and we want that too. That is the abundant life.” BHY