Advent Season
(Anticipating the Birth of Jesus)
28 Names of Jesus | December 26, 2020
Name #24: “Son of God”
My father and I are remarkably similar. We have similar facial features, our bodies experience aches and pains in the same places, and we analyze situations similarly. There is no doubt I am his son, because I resemble him in so many ways.
Christmas is a time when we celebrate the arrival of the Son of God. Luke 1:35 tells us, “And the angel answered her, ‘The Holy Spirit will come upon you, and the power of the Most High will overshadow you; therefore the child to be born will be called holy—the Son of God.’”
Christ was the human embodiment of God. Jesus was one with the Father (John 10:30). He was God on display in human form. I’ve heard it said that if you want to know what God is like, look at Jesus. While my father and I are quite similar, we are not carbon copies of each other. While similar, we are not the same — we differ in many ways. Jesus, however, resembles the Father in every way.
What I find encouraging is that God extends the invitation to us to be called Children of God. John 1:12 – 13: “But to all who did receive him, who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God, who were born, not of blood nor of the will of the flesh nor of the will of man, but of God.” How can this be? We are not even close to being a proper representation of God. The way this is possible is by adoption into God’s family through the sacrifice of Christ (1 Peter 1:13 – 16).
It’s through adoption into the family of God that allows the Spirit of God to dwell in us and begin to transform us to be a more proper representation of God day-by-day (2 Corinthians 3:18). It’s in that adoption that we find our identity and our mission. If we have accepted Christ, we are a new creation (2 Corinthians 5:17) and our mission is to properly reflect what it looks like to be part of God’s family (1 Peter 1:14 – 15) so that others may also join us in being adopted into God’s family (Matthew 28:19).
That is the beauty of Christmas. It’s the beginning of the final stages of God’s redemptive plan for humanity. It’s God seeking you out and saying, “I want you to be part of my family.” This Christmas season, rest in the confidence that God loves you enough that He sent His Son to Earth to pay the price for our sins so that we could also be called “Children of God.”
Adam Deering