When the Holy Spirit wants you to focus on a verse or a passage of Scripture, He makes that specific verse/passage appear in everything you read. If you listen to a sermon, there it is! In the middle of the message, the preacher will go to that specific verse/passage.
I am sure this is not my experience only but yours too, I assume.
So, these days, this verse is the one I see/hear everywhere and I tend to think about it a lot:
“For you know the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, that though He was rich, yet for your sake He became poor, so that you through His poverty might become rich.” 2 Corinthians 8:9 NASB
Please take your time and meditate on this verse.
Christ became poor so you and I would become rich.
From the outside, it sounds like it is talking about “poorness” and “richness” as we know it: poor meaning not having food, clothes and shelter and rich meaning becoming wealthy in this material world — you know, all the toys this world can offer, like cars, houses, and anything else you can think of.
If that was the case, Jesus would have been the God of Hollywood because all the toys are found there.
Well, the verse says, “though He was rich,” which means His “richness” is still there with Him. It is not like He stopped being rich. He can’t stop being rich because Christ’s richness has everything to do with deity and there is no point in Christ’s life where He started or stopped being Deity. He is always God, from eternity to eternity. There is no beginning or end to Him nor His deity.
“For in Him [in Christ] all the fullness of Deity dwells in bodily form” Colossians 2:9 NASB – for how long? Forever!
“And He[Christ] is the radiance of His [God’s] glory and the exact representation of His [God’s] nature, and upholds all things by the word of His power.” Hebrews 1:3a NASB
So, we have to always remember that Jesus did not stop being God to come to this earth because He cannot stop being God.
Paul writes:
“Have this attitude in yourselves which was also in Christ Jesus, who, as He already existed in the form of God, did not consider equality with God something to be grasped, but emptied Himself by taking the form of a bond-servant and being born in the likeness of men. ” Philippians 2:5-7 NASB
Ah!
“emptied Himself” – did you see that?
Now this may also sound like Paul is saying, “Jesus put aside His deity to take the form of a man.”
But again, Jesus CANNOT stop being God because God is God from eternity to eternity.
Rather, Christ’s poorness or emptiness came from His willingness to “add” the form of a bond-servant.
That is why many Bible scholars say that Christ’s poorness came not from subtraction but from ADDITION.
Do you see it?
He is the only One who lives on forever as 100% God and 100% man. There is beginning to His addition of this “man-ness” to His deity but there is no beginning and end to His deity.
I mean, if this does not take your breath away, I don’t know what will.
Jesus took this “poverty” on Himself for me, me “the chief sinner.”
“This is a faithful saying, and worthy of all acceptation, that Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners; of whom I am chief.” 1 Timothy 1:15 KJV
And you may ask,
“Okay, I get it. I now understand what “Christ became poor” means. But what about “we become rich?” What does that mean? What is our richness?”
Good question!
Listen:
“3 Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places in Christ, 4 just as He chose us in Him before the foundation of the world, that we would be holy and blameless before Him. In love 5 He predestined us to adoption as sons and daughters through Jesus Christ to Himself, according to the good pleasure of His will, 6 to the praise of the glory of His grace, with which He favored us in the Beloved. 7 In Him we have redemption through His blood, the forgiveness of our wrongdoings, according to the riches of His grace 8 which He lavished on us. In all wisdom and insight 9 He made known to us the mystery of His will, according to His good pleasure which He set forth in Him, 10 regarding His plan of the fullness of the times, to bring all things together in Christ, things in the heavens and things on the earth. 11 In Him we also have obtained an inheritance, having been predestined according to the purpose of Him who works all things in accordance with the plan of His will, 12 to the end that we who were the first to hope in the Christ would be to the praise of His glory. 13 In Him, you also, after listening to the message of truth, the gospel of your salvation—having also believed, you were sealed in Him with the Holy Spirit of the promise, 14 who is a first installment of our inheritance, in regard to the redemption of God’s own possession, to the praise of His glory.” Ephesians 1:3-14 NASB
We were dead in our sins (Ephesians 2:1) but He raised us up. We were children of wrath (Ephesians 2:3) but He made us children of God. With this new title, “children of God,” comes innumerable and countless riches that this world will never come to know.
This is the kind of richness the Lord Jesus Christ gave us.
One more thing:
When Jesus expressed His willingness to do His Father’s will, which is to add humanity to His deity and die on the cross for sinners like me and you so we will be God’s children, Jesus did not choose to be born in a king’s house and become the prince. Rather, He chose to come from a poor family and be born in a manger. As He grew, He didn’t have a thing to call His own, not a fancy home or a wardrobe full of clothing. And when He got to the finish line, to drink and finish the full cup of the wrath of God for you and me, He had to be sin and become cursed for us (2 Cor 5:21, Galatians 3:13). That means that in order for God’s justice to be fully satisfied, Jesus became willing to die in the most shameful and excruciating way, death on a cross.
So, the word of God says,
“8 And being found in appearance as a man, He humbled Himself by becoming obedient to the point of death: death on a cross. 9 For this reason also God highly exalted Him, and bestowed on Him the name which is above every name, 10 so that at the name of Jesus every knee will bow, of those who are in heaven and on earth and under the earth, 11 and that every tongue will confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.” Philippians 2:8-11 NASB
So, my beloved friend, let’s think on this as we all prepare to celebrate Christmas. For us, Christmas should not be a time to celebrate Santa Clause but our Lord Jesus Christ; and we don’t celebrate our Lord on only one day or holiday season out of the year, but every day of our lives.
Yes, “For you know the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, that though He was rich, yet for your sake He became poor, so that you through His poverty might become rich.” 2 Corinthians 8:9 NASB
May the name of Jesus Christ our Lord forever be praised! ///