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1.  Why We Need a Savior

Genesis 3:8-15
Key verse:
“And I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your offspring and hers; He will crush your head, and you will strike His heel.”
Genesis 3:15

The world, as we know it today, is not what our Lord God intended.  In the beginning, there was harmony and peace, but sin put an end to His original design. 
Throughout scripture we are reminded again and again, “Be holy, for I am holy.”  God is perfect.  Our sin separates us from Him.

We see the breakdown of relationships as soon as the first sin was committed.  Adam and Eve became afraid of God.  Adam turned on Eve and Eve turned on the serpent.  God’s beautiful world had been hurled to the floor by a willful act resulting in shattered pieces being flung across the floor. 

What to do?  God had two choices.  He could get the broom and dust pan and sweep the disaster into the garbage.  But then what would have prevented satan from just destroying the next attempt?  On the other hand, God could do what He could to retrieve the pieces and begin, painstakingly, to put His creation back together.  Obviously, we know that He chose the latter.  Why? Because of love, and because there is greater glory in restoring what satan tried to ruin and prove that he couldn’t stop God from completing what he had begun..

He knew that the process would be painful and slow, but in Love, He worked on.  Even here, at the beginning, He plants a seed of hope that the serpent will be destroyed in the end for his folly.
We’ve all experienced the joy, and frustration of taking a road trip in the car.  We begin by getting out the map, or researching on the internet, or programming in our destination on the G.P.S.  After the packing and rechecking our lists, we hop in the car to begin.  As we proceed, the excitement builds as the distance gets shorter and the mileage signs get lower.  Each sign along the way lets us know that we are getting closer until, at last, “we have reached our destination,” and the real fun can begin.

It is the same principle with the coming of the Messiah.  Here, in the first reading, we see the beginning of the journey, God and the world on the way to wholeness and reconciliation.  Here we see the earliest sign pointing the way to restoration.  God would set things right, but He would do it with great patience and perfection.  Many people would suffer as they waited for things to be put right, just as we often suffer mild discomfort on long car rides, but God was always working, always giving hope. 

You may wonder, “If this is supposed to be a devotional about Christ, why are we starting in Genesis?”  It is because this is where God begins to tell us about Jesus and who He is for us.  There are prophecies about Jesus all the way through the Old Testament and if we can see each of these prophesies that we visit first as signs, growing  closer and closer, pointing the way to Jesus, we can see just how patient and long suffering our Father God truly is.  We will see how Jesus was there at the beginning, in the garden, and will also be at the end, in glory.

Hymn:  “O Come, O come Emmanuel” https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7xtpJ4Q_Q-4 

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