The Best of ALC Devotions: Day 4
Jesus The... Part 1 || Day 4
Colossians 2:4-9
Now this I say lest anyone should deceive you with persuasive words. For though I am absent in the flesh, yet I am with you in spirit, rejoicing to see your good order and the steadfastness of your faith in Christ. As you therefore have received Christ Jesus the Lord, so walk in Him, rooted and built up in Him and established in the faith, as you have been taught, abounding in it with thanksgiving. Beware lest anyone cheat you through philosophy and empty deceit, according to the tradition of men, according to the basic principles of the world, and not according to Christ. For in Him dwells all the fullness of the Godhead bodily
John 1:10-14 NKJV
He was in the world, and the world was made through Him, and the world did not know Him. He came to His own, and His own did not receive Him. But as many as received Him, to them He gave the right to become children of God, to those who believe in His name: who were born, not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God. And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we beheld His glory, the glory as of the only begotten of the Father, full of grace and truth.
Colossians 1:15-18 NKJV
He is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn over all creation. For by Him all things were created that are in heaven and that are on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or principalities or powers. All things were created through Him and for Him. And He is before all things, and in Him all things consist. And He is the head of the body, the church, who is the beginning, the firstborn from the dead, that in all things He may have the preeminence.
Jesus the Messiah means Jesus the Deliverer.
Moses was a mighty prophet of God who was used mightily to deliver God’s people from the bondage of Egypt. He would keep going to Pharaoh and telling him to let God’s people go. When he refused, God would send judgement against him and the people of Egypt. Finally, they placed the blood of the lamb on their doors and all the first born of Egypt dies and Pharaoh lets the people go.
The next morning all the people of God walked through their door posts, under the blood of the lamb, to leave Egypt. They crossed through the Red Sea. Once they got to the other side God comes upon them as a cloud by day and a fire by night.
God tells Moses in Deuteronomy 18:18-19, “I will raise up for them a Prophet like you from among their brethren, and will put My words in His mouth, and He shall speak to them all that I command Him. And it shall be that whoever will not hear My words, which He speaks in My name, I will require it of him.”
Church, for almost four thousand years man was trapped by his sins and the bondage of the devil. There was no one to free him regardless of what was done. That’s why nowhere in the Old Testament do you see a demon being cast out. Man was oppressed by the satanic powers of hell ruling this earth.
But the prophet Isaiah was able to look through the eons of time and prophesy in Isaiah 7:14, “Therefore the Lord Himself will give you a sign: The virgin will conceive and give birth to a son and will call Him Immanuel. And the angels shall praise God saying, ‘Glory to God in the highest and on earth peace and goodwill toward men.’” He shall bruise your head, and you shall bruise His heel (Genesis 3:15).
Church, here comes Jesus! For several thousand years the devil has been wilding out. But now there’s not a deliverer, but THE DELIVERER. That’s why the devil kept coming to Him saying, “if you are the Son of God”… All Jesus would tell him was the Word. Why? Because in the beginning was the Word and the Word was with God and the Word was God.
Now, all of a sudden, the devil is getting reports that his demons are being cast out of people. They are losing their hold in the earth and in the lives of people. Jesus comes to one man who had thousands of demons and with one word all of them had to leave. He comes to a little boy and his father, and no one could cast the demons out. These demons were trying to kill the little boy. Jesus commands them to leave and they leave.
The devil comes up with a plan to kill Jesus so He can’t continue this power in the earth. But what the devil didn’t know is that he wasn’t dealing with a deliverer, he was dealing THE DELIVERER. Therefore, when Jesus was crucified all he did was fulfill the plan of deliverance.
Now Jesus is not just THE DELIVERER, He’s also the LAMB! Now He’s not only leading us through the waters of baptism, He is the water. Now He’s not only covering us with a cloud and fire, but He baptizes us in the fire and cloud.
Beloved, regardless of what it is that may have you in bondage, I’ve come to tell you, Jesus is the Messiah. Therefore, He is THE DELIVERER! Whatever bondage you humbly come to Him with today He will deliver you. He is THE DELIVERER!