Message - Epiphany - Celebrating Jesus Christ

 

Today the world celebrates Jesus, His baptism and ministry. We celebrate Jesus who is the saviour of all people and generation.

Remember the wise men who came from east to see and worship Jesus. They saw the shining star and followed it to see the king of Jews who was born. We need to understand they saw Jesus not in manger, but in the house where He was staying. They knelt down and paid homage and presented gifts of gold, frankincense and myrrh before him. (Matthew 2: 1-12)

Epiphany means shine through. It symbolizes the light of our saviour. He is the light in darkness who brightly shined and brought salvation to the world. “I am the light of the world. Whoever follows me will never walk in darkness, but will have the light of life” – John 8: 12.

More than everything, Jesus is a marvelous gift to the gentiles. Gentiles means whoever is not a Jew. In the Old Testament, God called a man called Jacob, the grand son of Abraham, to be His chosen people. Jacob was named as Israel and was called as Gods possession. Throughout Old Testament God’s chosen people were Israel. But He had a mystery of Christ, which was not made known to people in those generations.

The mystery is that through the gospel of Christ, the Gentiles are heirs together with Israel, members together of one body, and shares together in the promise in Christ Jesus. (Ephesians 3: 1-13).

That is why Epiphany is considered to celebrate Jesus who came to the world, obeyed the laws, died for the sins of all the people so that we will be pure and holy in the presence of God and be His chosen ones along with Israel whom He chosen first. So, the promises God gave to Abraham, Issac and Jacob are being inherited upon us who believe in Jesus.

One of the promises God gave Israel is that world will be blessed because of them. Now when you see the inventions of the world, almost all good ones have come from a Jew. The blessing continues.

We celebrate Jesus because through Christ we also inherit the blessings given to Jacob and we are going to be a blessing to the world. More than that the greatest blessing we received from Christ is the salvation from our sins.

Hope this day you remember the works of Christ, read the gospel, surrender your life to Him and have peace and hope in your life that through Him you can be a blessing.

May God bless you!

Perfect Timing

When the first man sinned, God promised him a saviour who will come to the world and will take the punishment for their sins and save them to be a child of God (Genesis 3: 15). When Adam and Eve heard this promise they would have thought, might be end of that day the saviour will come and do everything which was promised and would have waited for his arrival. But Lord Jesus came to this world as human 4000 years after God promised his arrival.

Man thinks things to be done at a certain time, but God decides to do everything at His perfect time. “The horse is made ready for the day of battle, but victory rests with the LORD” – Proverbs 21: 31.

Throughout the Bible we see God’s perfect timings against man’s wish.

In Genesis 37, we see Joseph getting sold by his brothers and being punished by Potiphar, even when he was innocent. But God made a perfect timing for him after 13 years and made him the prime minister of Egypt (Genesis 41).

In Exodus 6, we see when God wanted to rescue Israelites from the torture of Pharaoh, he brought plagues in Egypt. He could have made Pharaoh to let the Israelites go to Canaan. But He made Pharaoh’s heart hard to show His power and glory to the world and in His time he rescued Israel miraculously through the Red sea.

When the wicked Haman was plotting and planning to destroy Israel, God made Esther the queen and in His time destroyed Haman (Esther 7)

Even in New Testament opening, we see the priest Zechariah who was praying for a child for long years. He and his wife were old. But God did not give them a child. Why? Because God was planning to bring Jesus into the world and he wanted John, the Baptist to be born just before Jesus birth. (Luke 1).

There are people who are disappointed and depressed that they are childless, or not married, or unemployed. Some are depressed because of physical, financial or emotional stress/problems. The people we see throughout Bible were also very sad and discouraged when problems came in their life. But one think they did. They prayed and kept hope that God can make a way in any situation. Same way God showed them their miracle at His perfect time.

You need to read the Bible, accept the verse as it is, pray and meditate upon it and claim your miracle accordingly. Always have Jesus Christ as your personal saviour, accepting your sins and confessing it before God and believing and accepting the fact that Christ paid the price for your sins and you’re free from sin once you accept Christ. So you are saved not to go back to your sins, but to live a holy life, to do good works.

May The Lord help you to accept salvation, live a holy life and claim all the blessed promises this end of the year with faith and hope, to get miracles and blessings from God in His and your Prefect Time of life.