Therefore, the Lord himself will give you a sign:  The virgin will conceive, have a son, and name Him Immanuel.  Isaiah 7:14 HCSB

Today a Savior, who is the Messiah the Lord, was born for you in the city of David.  Luke 2:11 HCSB

And Jesus called out with a loud voice, “Father, into Your hands I entrust My spirit.”  Saying this, He breathed His last.  Luke 23:46 HCSB

So the women were terrified and bowed down to the ground.  “Why are you looking for the living among the dead?” asked the men.  “He is not here, but He has been resurrected!  Remember how He spoke to you when He was still in Galilee, saying, ‘The Son of Man must be betrayed into the hands of sinful men, be crucified, and rise on the third day?  Luke 24:5-7 HCSB

I am a big picture kind of person.  Just give me the facts.  I want to know the end result.  I don’t need every tiny detail.  However, the story of Jesus fascinates me.  It makes me truly understand how powerful God is and how He plans things out in order that His will be done.  There is no greater example of this than the birth, death and resurrection of Jesus.  Let’s start with Isaiah.

In Isaiah, the prophet, Isaiah is trying to warn the people that their sinful ways are going to lead to their captivity by a more powerful nation.  He tries to explain to them that a Messiah is coming to save them from their sins.  He’s not making a lot of headway with these people, because they seem determined to do it their way, sound familiar?  So Isaiah lets them know that in the years come God is going to send a Messiah to save them from their sins.  He lets them know that this child will be born of a virgin. So here we know of God’s plan to save a sinful world.  Now according to my bible, the time frame for Isaiah was between 740-680 BC.

So we fast forward to when my bible tells me that Jesus was born, which was somewhere between 6 and 5 BC.  So approximately 685 years after Isaiah prophesies Jesus’ birth, Jesus is born.  Now this is all of the timeline stuff, so thanks with bearing with me through that.  Yes, it leaves me a little confused too.  As I type this I am writing a note to self to talk to my pastor for clarification.

Anyway, we don’t know how Joseph and Mary were chosen to bring Jesus into the world and raise Him as their son, but they were.  So obviously this was all part of God’s plan.  It fulfilled God’s promise to David that the Messiah would come from his line and that his kingdom would reign forever.  So even before  Isaiah prophesied Jesus’ birth, God had made this promise to David (2 Samuel 7:12-16) that his son would succeed him as king and his son’s throne kingdom would be established forever.

So we know that Jesus’ parents were of the lineage of David and thus the Messiah was born from the line of David as God had promised.  Jesus lived as a perfect example for us for 33 years and died to save us from sin and death.  He rose and walked the earth for 40 days before ascending to heaven to sit at the right hand of God the Father (Acts 1:9).  Now if you want an in depth study of all this, Angie Smith did a study called Seamless where she does a wonderful job of tying all of this together from Genesis to Revelation.  But the big picture here is that Jesus was born to die for our sins and to be raised and sit at the right hand of God the Father.   All of this for sinners like you and me.

So while you are having your mind boggled, let me add this.  You too were born for a purpose.  You were born to serve God in some way. Maybe unlike David you weren’t born to slay a giant and become a great king.  Maybe you weren’t born as Isaiah to be a prophet.  Maybe you weren’t born like Mary to give birth to our Savior.  Maybe you weren’t born like Joseph to raise Jesus as your own son.  But, you were born for a purpose.  You were born to fulfill some part of God’s plan.  If you are reading this and understand what God has called you to do and you are doing it, then good for you.  Keep on keeping on.

But, if you are reading this and have no idea what I am talking about, then I beg you to draw near to God.  Know that He has good plans for you (Jeremiah 29:11).  But you have a choice.  You can draw near to Him and understand what it is that He wants you to do.  Or you can ignore Him, just as many ignored the warnings of Isaiah.  Let me say that this did not work so well for them.

Jesus was fully God and fully man.  Jesus was tempted by Satan (Matthew 4:1-11).  As man, He understands our temptations.  He understands when we suffer pain.  He understands when we suffer rejection.  As God, He could have called the angels to bring him up to heaven and aborted this mission at any given time.  We know that when Jesus prayed in the garden of Gethsemane (Luke 22:42) that he asked God to “take this cup away”.  He knew that He would be facing horrible pain and suffering, but He also prayed that God’s will be done.

In Matthew 6, Jesus gives us the model prayer where he instructs his disciples in verse 10 that they should pay that God’s will be done.

So, the big picture is that we should be living in God’s will.  We should be living as He called us to live and doing what He called us to do.  This is God’s will for us and His will and His way are perfect.

I encourage you to do a little self check today to be sure that you are living in God’s will.  If you have to make some changes to do that, don’t be scared.  It will be a move that you will never regret.

Have a great day!