Why Did God Give Us Jesus?
Many focus on the story of Jesus at this time of the year. God has given us the story of Jesus so that we can know who Jesus is and choose to identify with Him. Identifying with Jesus restores a person destroyed by sin to fellowship with God and creates a new life. Paul wrote about this transformation in 2 Corinthians 5:17-19:
Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; old things have passed away; behold, all things have become new. Now all things are of God, who has reconciled us to Himself through Jesus Christ, and has given us the ministry of reconciliation, that is, that God was in Christ reconciling the world to Himself, not imputing their trespasses to them, and has committed to us the word of reconciliation.
We become a new creation of God by identifying with Jesus. God wants us to identify with Jesus because Jesus is the second Adam (1 Corinthians 15:45) – the new standard of humanity. When we identify with Jesus we become what God truly wants us to be as the creation He intended. We identify with Jesus by being baptized (Colossians 2:11-13). When we are baptized, we undergo in water the process of Jesus’ death, burial, and resurrection identifying with Him and the message of the gospel (1 Corinthians 15:1-4, Romans 6:1-11, Colossians 2:12). When we so put on Christ, we are no longer presenting the old man of sin as our identity, but the new man that is in Christ as our identity. This brings us into God’s family since Jesus is the Son of God. Do you want to be what God intended you to be? Identify with Jesus today and be baptized. God bless you, and I love you.