Jesus is the Reason For the Season - Part 2

By Rev. Ernest O'Neill

Now, there's another incredible reason why you and I need to get back to Jesus and it's in the next verse. It's not obvious in the translation. See John 1:4, "In him was life, and the life was the light of men." You see the translation of that symbolized by the footnote 'a' -- you see after the word 'life' is a little 'a'? Then you go to the bottom of the column there and you see footnote 'a' and that's the alternative translation of the Greek.

Instead of "In him was life", it is "That which has been made was life in Him." I looked up the Greek for that in the library before coming up here and that is the translation of the Greek. "That which has been made was life in Him." You were life in Him. It just bewilders you. You were life in Jesus before you came here.

The doctors can't explain why the heart keeps beating. They talk about the electric charge but they can't explain why it keeps beating. The reason is there is the life of Jesus in you that keeps you alive. You are alive here today because there's the life of Jesus in you that keeps you alive. Because you were life in Him before you came to this earth. Now, loved ones I don't know how to get that over to you if you're filled with all kinds of inferiority complexes and feelings of being worthless and being useless. I don't know how to stop you from thinking that. That is a gross lie. It is a desperate untruth.

The fact is you are part of Jesus in a way in which none of the rest of us are. That which has been made was life in Him. Why did He make you? Did He just want crowds around Him? You know He doesn't. You know how He scatters the seeds that make the flowers and how relatively few of them grow into flowers. He's not concerned with numbers. Why are you alive at all? Because you were part of Jesus' life in a way that none of the rest of us are.

There is a part of His life in you that is not in anybody else in the world. That's why you are alive. You are not just a nothing. You are not just some human being trying to make His way through this life. You are a unique part of Jesus. I don't know how to get that over to you. I'd love to take each of you individually and just give you a good shake. That wouldn't do it but I'd love to whisper it repeatedly into your ear for the next 40 years that you are part of Jesus.

There is something of Jesus in you that isn't in the rest of us. And it's His life that keeps you alive. Can you see what a dreadful sense of strain He must have when He looks at you and me ignoring Him? He knows that it's Him that keeps us alive, that it's His life that gives to you your individuality. It's His life that makes you -- you. Loved ones, that's why you are precious. And that's why Jesus is dear and you need to get to know Jesus.

You need to start giving attention to Jesus and treating Him as a real person in your life. Talk to Him and think about Him as a real person. Begin to find out what He wants to do in your life. That's the other purpose of Christmas. It's in that same chapter if you look at it. It's in John 1:14.

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