Given December 18, 2011

God created the Garden of Eden, placed man and woman there, blessed them and told them, “Be fruitful, and multiply, and replenish the earth, and subdue it: and have dominion..”, (Genesis 1:28).  God’s plan was for His creation to live under His blessing and to improve from there on.  But Adam and Eve gave all that away and we don’t celebrate the creation of the earth.

Things got worse and worse because of the sin and death that entered the earth in the Garden but God had another plan.  “But Noah found grace in the eyes of the Lord” (Genesis 6:8).  God saved Noah and his family so they could start over and get back what Adam gave up.  “And God blessed Noah and his sons, and said unto them, Be fruitful, and multiply, and replenish the earth.” (Genesis 9:1).  Have we heard that before?  The Blessing!  One of Noah’s sons followed the Blessing but the other two did as Adam had done and took the path of evil.  We do not celebrate the landing of the ark on Mount Ararat.

Things on the earth were still not as God had intended.  Ten generations after Noah, God found another good man, Abraham, and told him, “That in blessing I will bless thee, and in multiplying I will multiply thy seed, and in thy seed shall all the nations of the earth be blessed;” (Genesis 22:17-18).  God wanted His original blessing to be on His people.  He saw that the only way for man to be redeemed from the original sin in the Garden was for His offspring to be born of a woman on earth, live a sinless life, and die taking ALL sin on Himself to the grave.  Jesus was that offspring.  He made the way for us to get back the Blessing planned in the Garden.  “That the blessing of Abraham might come on the Gentiles through Jesus Christ; that we might receive the promise of the Spirit through faith.” (Galatians 3:14).  We DO celebrate the birth of Jesus!  Merry Christmas and be Blessed!