That no one would be able to take credit for

"That God did in the formation of Israel, in the birth of Jesus, in His death on the cross which no one anywhere could ever do."

IN THE BEGINNING was the Word, at the height of His power and glory, with a word creating the earth and the skies and the seas. In His wisdom, He fashioned ecosystems and the creatures that coexist in them. He created it all in perfection, not one thing out of place, nothing which lacked for its lifespan in either food or relationships. That which exists in the desert on arid land and meager subsistence, that which dwells amongst ice and snow, abounding where cold temperatures are prevalent, all things that man has barely studied and even begun to understand, were fashioned at His mighty hand. And it was all good, all of it, including the man made in His image to rule like Him and create with Him. Including the woman fashioned from His side. She came from Adam, but she came from God. Take a bone and carve upon it your days and years. Reattach them together and you have a portrait of someone. But the life, the breath, and the love was His.

He declared the end of death before the beginning of death. Before the need to plant a seed, He created the seed and the principle which causes it to grow. He set the sun in the heavens to orbit and be orbited, to control the tides that would forever flow. He plotted the rain before the clouds turned gray and knew the prism of light that forms a rainbow. From the inception of time, He plotted the end of time and from outside of time, knew His own inception.

God who is known by many names, Elohim, Sabaoth, Jehovah, Yahweh who stood atop the mountain and flashed lightning and sounds of thunder, who with a breath, parted waters which stood up in a heap, the God of Abraham who made him a promise to give him a child though he and Sarah were well past the age of conceiving, who had said his descendants would outnumber the stars, God turned loose of His glory and omniscience, He set down His beauty and power, His unending wisdom and knowledge, Him being the fount of it, its very source, and descended from wealth and honor to become in the form of man which He'd created.

Does the moon fit onto our finger? Does the sea now fill the cup in our hand? Would the idols of men so lower themselves? Where is Atlas in the graveyard? Where in a thimble is Venus? Where upon the earthen grass which fades in the summer's heat, is the might of Zeus?

Take a man, any man, and lay the weight of God on his shoulders, force him in human strength to toil to do all that our Creator has done, and we will find him buried beneath the soil. Man can only repair man, only encourage man, only sacrifice himself and accept the end of it. Breathe your strongest breath and you've moved nothing. But God who designed the whale, which carried Jonah for a time, until he was ejected alive and well, albeit no younger, God who prophesied to Daniel, a youth locked in a foreign culture, of all that would transpire at the end of time, God who formed a people, a nation for Himself SO THAT NO ONE ANYWHERE COULD EVER CREDIT THEMSELVES FOR IT, also placed Himself in the womb of a virgin SO THAT NO ONE ANYWHERE COULD EVER CREDIT THEMSELVES FOR IT.

No one created Isaac, the son of promise. He was conceived by the goodness of God to Abraham and Sarah, ages 90 and 100, something which remains impossible in this day and time. No one multiplied his descendants until they outnumbered Egypt then delivered them in miracles that no demon ideology could imitate. Rabbi Meir Solaveichik says the rod tossed at the magicians’ feet became a crocodile, that this is the true rendering of the Word "snake." No one turned Moses' rod into a crocodile that consumed all the others around it then returned it to a staff that would win a battle when held aloft and part an ocean of water to make dry land. No one person did these things, yet the infant that nursed at Mary's breast was, as the song says, the Son of God.

He could not speak His name. He was not coordinated but clumsy when He learned to walk. He gurgled and cooed, squalled, kicking His legs, in admiration of His toes for a time. He lit up at His father, Joseph's voice, not knowing, in His infancy, the voice of God in Him, nor the circumstances of His birth. Here's a thought. For two years, thereabouts, He wasn't even surrounded by Hebrews. He became a Jew from a line of long-dead kings only to escape in His parent's grasp from the murderous rage of a demonically enraged Roman. If Joseph had not heard God in the dream, Jesus, infant, would be dead. God who'd fashioned countries, who saw their formation, when no one thought the world was round, God who designed continents and borders, who raised up kings and pulled them down again, had lain in a manger, then an Egyptian domicile, in order to grow up in Nazareth until God in heaven and God within Him dedicated Him for what He Himself had designed He would do, THAT NO ONE WOULD BE ABLE TO TAKE CREDIT FOR.

We have known these things and yet have not known them. THAT GOD DID IN THE FORMATION OF ISRAEL, IN THE BIRTH OF JESUS, IN HIS DEATH ON THE CROSS WHAT NO ONE ANYWHERE COULD EVER DO. For this reason, He is King of Kings and Lord of Lords. Because being God, He lived as a man dependent on God, from birth to death to Resurrection, when He returned to being the fullness of God.

We are truly not worthy of such a love as that but are so richly rewarded in our intimacy with Him. He promised His disciples, those He prayed for, the whole kingdom. Not an earthly kingdom stolen from one ruler or another, but His own kingdom, the kingdom of God, who He is, without borders or deficit or deficiency. His kingdom in abundance. This is our inheritance. For we are those who were saved through them (John 17:20). And He is, as we are, still human, except completely redeemed. Romans 8:23 speaks these words, that we wait for the complete redemption of our bodies, to be made like He is. Minus frailty, minus sickness, minus death, which will be consumed by Him.

THAT NO ONE ANYWHERE COULD EVER CREDIT THEMSELVES FOR:

• A man, Abraham – “Therefore sprang there even of one, and him as good as dead, so many as the stars of the sky in multitude, and as the sand which is by the sea shore innumerable.” (Hebrews 11:12)
• A nation, Israel – “This people have I formed for myself; they shall shew forth my praise.” (Isaiah 43:21)
• A virgin mother – “Therefore the Lord himself shall give you a sign; Behold, a virgin shall conceive, and bear a son, and shall call his name Immanuel.” (Isaiah 7:14)
• A body – “Wherefore when he cometh into the world, he saith, Sacrifice and offering thou wouldest not, but a body hast thou prepared me:” (Hebrews 10:5)
• A resurrection – “And if the Spirit of him who raised Jesus from the dead is living within you, he who raised Christ from the dead will give you the power to live victoriously here and now in your mortal bodies. This is accomplished by living in trust and receiving the power of the Spirit.” (Romans 8:11)

Photo by Christopher Sardegna on Unsplash


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Suzanne D. Williams, Author
www.suzannedwilliams.com
www.feelgoodromance.com