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How Does God take care of my needs?

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What do you need? I suppose the answer to that query all depends upon the person on the other end of the question. Ask an orphan in Guntur, India. Ask a young mom with two toddlers. Ask a hospitalized diabetic. Ask the CEO of a Fortune 500 company. What do we need?

For the vast majority of Americans the answer would not be what the child in India needs, namely a little rice and something besides a dirt floor to sleep on. Still, every individual has definite needs in life, no matter the economic or ethnic background. The essential needs of food and shelter, the physical needs of safety and security, the emotional needs of being loved and accepted—all such needs are foundational and fundamental.

How does God take care of those needs? To disciples who were caught up in a mad rush toward the accumulation of things, Jesus pointed to flowers and birds. “Your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not much more valuable than they?” Our loving Savior is also our caring Creator! It is he who provides us with the wisdom and strength to earn our physical needs of food and shelter. It is he who allows us the contentment of a job well done as we utilize our God-given abilities. He also provides us with protection and security through his representatives of government and police. He even provides us with emotional needs of love and acceptance through family and friends.

Yet when these human representatives of God’s providence fail us—and they often will—our caring Savior God will never fail us. “His love endures forever.” Consider how great is the love of Jesus who died and rose for us! We now know that we are acceptable to God through Christ. Our soul is safe. We are content. We have God’s promise: “He who did not spare his own Son, but gave him up for us all – how will he not also, along with him, graciously give us all things?” The One who holds the stars in their place knows our names and our needs. He seeks our happiness forever, not just for a few short years now.

Look to Jesus, for he says, “I will never leave you nor forsake you.”

Unchanging Hope for an Ever-changing World

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Jesus Christ is the same yesterday and today and forever.  Hebrews 13:8

As one year ends and another begins, columnists and commentators look back at the previous year. What changed? What stayed the same? Whose passing did we mourn? Whose new arrival did we celebrate?

At the same time, we make predictions about the coming year. What will the new year hold? What will change? What will stay the same?

As fun and exciting as it may be to reminisce about the past and dream about the future, it can also be a little sad and scary. Things will likely never be what they used to be. Loved ones who have passed away don’t come back. Jobs that are lost seldom reappear quickly. Even when broken dreams and broken relationships are repaired, they rarely return to their former glory. Many times our experiences in an ever-changing world are difficult.

Yet we sometimes look at our lives and see a need for change. Many of us make New Year’s resolutions: “I’m going to exercise more and eat less.” “I’m going to save more and spend less.” “I’m going to love more and hate less.” But too often, our good intentions disappear, and only poor excuses remain.

No matter what (or who) changes from one year to the next, there is one who never changes—Jesus Christ, the Son of God. He always exists, from before time, throughout the course of time, and at the end of time for eternity. Jesus loved you before you were born. He loves you today, and he will always love you.

Jesus loved you so much that he wanted you to experience his unchanging love forever. So he came into the world to live up to God’s perfect demands in your place. He took the punishment for your imperfection and gave you the reward for his perfection. That reward is an eternity far away from this world’s sorrows and disappointments—the unchanging peace and joy of a place called heaven.

Jesus—the same yesterday, today, and forever—promises to be with us, to love us, to care for us, and to give perfect peace with God to all who trust in him. Only Jesus offers unchanging hope to an ever-changing world.

God and Man

How did God become a man?

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How did God become a man?

In a word: “miraculously.” When God became a man in the person of Jesus Christ, he overthrew the basic principle on which he had founded the universe: the distinction between the Creator and the creation.

The opening words of the Bible make that distinction clear: “In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth”(Genesis 1:1). That means God is not the world, nor is he anything in the world.

The chasm between God and everything that isn’t God is vast and unbridgeable. Martin Luther once said it would be far easier to understand that a man became a donkey, than that God became a man. “Man” and “donkey” have much more in common. They’re both creatures, which makes them fundamentally like each other and fundamentally different from their Creator.

The Bible states that at a specific time and place in history, the eternal, almighty, infinite God became a human being like you and me, and yet without ceasing for an instant to be God.

God’s own angel explained it to a virgin by the name of Mary. He said: “The Holy Spirit will come upon you, and the power of the Most High will overshadow you. So the holy one to be born will be called the Son of God” Luke 1:35.

This results in paradoxes we simply can’t understand. The Bible makes no attempt to explain them either. It simply says the baby who lay in the manger at Bethlehem is the Creator of the universe. The infinite, eternal God grew up in a village in Galilee. The almighty God went hungry, got thirsty, and even fell asleep.

Most miraculous and amazing of all, the immortal, eternal God died on Jesus’ cross.

These truths have important implications and blessings for us. Here are a few of them: Jesus’ atoning work is limitless in its scope and application; the sins of the world are completely paid; the redemption of mankind is accomplished; and God’s love for people is boundless.