The Whole Story, Briefly

The last several weeks, during the Advent and Christmas seasons, I've tried to show from scripture who God is and how he has chosen to relate to us humans.  To begin 2012, I'm writing the same things in summary, with a few supporting scriptures (you can click on the reference to read the scripture online, or look it up yourself):

1.  It was God's purpose from the first, as part of creation itself, to adopt humanity into a relationship of closeness and love (Eph. 1:3-6).  His plan is to be with us forever in a life of never-ending joy (Rev. 21:1-4).  Why?  Because God is love (1 John 4:8) and so he loves us now (John 17:23) as he has from the first.

2.  God's plan for humanity included, from the beginning, a way to bring us imperfect humans into his embrace. (Gen. 3:15, Isa. 7:14, Isa. 9:6-7, Isa. 11, Isa. 53, etc). The nation of Israel set up a 'vocabulary of salvation' with sacrifices, a priesthood, and so forth, to prepare us for the Messiah.

3.  The eternal Son of God was born into human flesh as Jesus (Matthew 1, Luke 1, Luke 2, John 1:1-18, John 4:21-26, etc).  His purpose was to fulfill the Father's plan, (John 4:31-34, John 5:35-40) and he was successful (John 17:1-8, John 19:30).  He brought everything to God in a relationship of peace (Col. 1:19-20) including you and me!  The work of Jesus Christ, in his life and on the cross and in his resurrection, has already removed all sin.  There is no longer anything standing between you and God! 

4.  The Holy Spirit, the third person of the Trinity, has the task of inviting us into the loving embrace of the Father (John 16:8-15) and he continues to draw people to believe (Acts 16:13-15).

So where does that leave you, dear reader?  To believe and accept what is already true about you, according to the word of God, and respond to him in that belief.  Our lives now, yours and mine, are about giving glory to the God who has loved us this much (Eph 2:10) and living a life of love (Eph. 5:2) as our response to him.  And if you haven't yet believed that, isn't the start of a new year a good time to begin?