"Just, Encased"

"The mountains shall bring peace to the people, and the little hills, by righteousness." (Psalms 72:3) You have got to love this, reading and thinking upon God's word one verse at a time. Imagine how long it would take to move through the whole Bible at this pace; as if we have that many days on this earth. This is a very odd verse, considering who is writing it and to whom it is being written; then again, I don't believe in accidents or random thoughts when it comes to God's Holy Word! Let's just say, for the sake of conversation, that this is directed directly at Jesus Christ. And let's just say, for the sake of inspiration, that this is talking about His Incarnation, which is God manifesting Himself here on this earth in human form. I heard pastor Mike say the other day, "This is the biggest demotion recorded in human History." I will take that one step further, by saying, This is the biggest demotion in the History of the Universe! In the Gospel of Luke 2:14, the angel that spoke to the shepherds was suddenly surrounded with a "multitude of heavenly hosts," saying, "Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace, good will toward men." The word "righteousness" that is used in the verses above is the same one that was used in verse one, which speaks of, "What right have I any more?" If you compare that expression with "good will toward men," as spoken by the 'heavenly hosts,' you will find a very interesting connection between the two; because "good will toward men" represents 'among men pleasure produced by salvation, or God's pleasure in men;' and "righteousness," as spoken above, indicates 'faith counted for righteousness,' as spoken of by Paul in Romans 4:22 concerning Abraham's righteousness being accounted to him by God because of his faith. In case you were not paying attention, these are the two most important pillars of the Christian Faith: Who Jesus is, and what He represented towards us! "The mountains shall bring peace to the people" because, like the 'peace' spoken of by the 'heavenly hosts,' that peace was manifested in the Incarnation of Christ; God coming here in human form to do for us what we could never do for ourselves; and let's not overlook the fact that He was God! Gives a little extra meaning to "Higher Than I," don't you think? In other words, you really can't get much better than that! Talk about "peace" and what real peace should represent; that the Creator of the universe would step down from the heavens and present Himself as a sacrifice for our sins. And to make matters more defined, while here in human form, "a little less than the angels" as Paul described Him, He remained sinless! I guess the only real way that we can love God the way that we should, is only if we have come from God. Just another example of how we miss the mark...
"So we have stopped evaluating others from a human point of view. At one time we thought of Christ merely from a human point of view. How differently we know Him now! This means that anyone who belongs to Christ has become a new person. The old life is gone; a new life has begun! And all of this is a gift from God, who brought us back to Himself through Christ. And God has given us the task of reconciling people to Him. For God was in Christ, reconciling the world to Himself, no longer counting people's sins against them. And He gave us this wonderful message of reconciliation. So we are Christ's ambassadors; God is making His appeal through us. We speak for Christ when we plead, "Come back to God!" For God made Christ, who never sinned, to be the offering for our sin, so that we could be made right with God through Christ." (2 Corinthians 5:16-21)