I’m submitting the following for this week’s “Pastor’s Column” in our local newspaper. If you have thoughts or suggestions, let me know by noon today! 🙂

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We just finished what for many is their favorite time of the year, Christmas. Increasingly our culture views this season in purely secular terms instead of praising God for the incarnation of Jesus Christ. However, regardless of what people may think, the Bible unequivocally says that Jesus of Nazareth was and is fully God and fully man!

The incarnation was necessary for a variety of reasons, but especially for the salvation of sinners. Before a holy God everyone stands as a guilty sinner, deserving eternal judgment. In and of ourselves we are incapable and unwilling to fix the situation—no amount of good feelings or religious works can ever remove sin’s guilt and pay the full price sin requires.

This is the reason for the incarnation, why the eternal Son added to His Person a human nature—so that a perfect man could offer Himself as a sinless sacrifice of infinite value being also eternal God. Believing anything short of this results in denying the Person and work of Jesus Christ and, sadly, the loss of any hope of eternal life. Let me encourage you—believe in and depend on Jesus Christ alone for deliverance from your sin!

The great hymn writer John Newton—who wrote “Amazing Grace”—also wrote another hymn that clearly sets forth the Biblical truth about Jesus Christ:

“What think ye of Christ?” is the test
To try both your state and your scheme;
You cannot be right in the rest
Unless you think rightly of Him.
As Jesus appears in your view—
As He is beloved or not—
So God is disposed to you,
And mercy or wrath is your lot.

Some take Him a creature to be—
A man, or an angel at most;
But they have not feelings like me,
Nor know themselves wretched and lost;
So guilty, so helpless am I,
I dare not confide in His blood
Nor on His protection rely,
Unless I were sure He is God.

Some call Him a Savior in word,
But mix their own works with His plan;
And hope He His help will afford
When they have done all that they can:
If doings prove rather too light
(Admitting their efforts may fail),
They purpose to make up full weight
By casting His name in the scale.

Some call Him “the pearl of great price”
And say He’s the fountain of joys;
Yet feed upon folly and vice,
And cleave to the world and its toys;
Like Judas the Savior they kiss,
And while they salute Him, betray;
O what will profession like this
Avail in His terrible day?

If asked what of Jesus I think,
Tho’ still my best thoughts are but poor,
I’ll say He’s my meat and my drink,
My life, and my strength, and my store!
My husband, my trust and my friend,
My Savior from sin and death’s gall,
My hope from beginning to end,
My portion, my Lord, and my all.