"P" - "Precise Prince of Peace"

December 15, 2011 “He is the sole expression of the glory of God and He is the precise imprint and very image of God’s nature, upholding and maintaining and guiding and propelling the universe by His mighty word of power. When He had by offering Himself accomplished our cleansing of sins and riddance of guilt, He sat down at the right hand of the divine Majesty on high. (Hebrews 1:3) Precise - this may sound like a strange word to use for an Advent writing, but our pastor used this word in a sermon and I immediately began to think of other words having to do with Advent that this adjective, “precise,” would describe. Webster says to be precise is to be “decisive, well defined, accurate, exact, inflexible and uncompromising.” What a wonderful adjective to describe Jehovah God, He is precise. He is decisive and uncompromising, He is the immutable God – He never changes. He has a precise plan for our salvation. That precise plan was for His Son to be born of a virgin, live as a man and die as our Savior, and send the Holy Spirit to live in us & empower us. Jesus never waivered nor was compromising from this precise plan. Jesus was the precise Person and precise Provision that would fulfill the precise plan, just at the precise time. The Father knew that man must have a perfect (exact, without a flaw) sacrifice for man’s sins. Jesus was the only perfect and precise Person that could satisfy God’s requirement for a holy sacrifice and bring us perfect restoration to man. The Father had a precise purpose, which was to pick us out for Himself in Christ, before the foundation of the world, and for us to be set apart and blameless in His sight, and be adopted as His own children through Jesus Christ (Eph. 1:4-6). His precise purpose was to give us peace, joy, healing, hope and all we could ask for, all of which comes to us by our salvation. The climax of God’s precise purpose was in the maturity of time to unify all things and consummate them in Christ, both things in heaven and on earth. In Christ we obtained an inheritance in accordance to His precise purpose, Who works out everything. God’s precise purpose was for those who had relied on Him to be stamped with the seal of the precisely promised Holy Spirit and all the gifts that He has for us (Eph.1:6-14). The Father’s precise purpose and plan was also that His Son would come to us as the Prince of Peace. “For to us a Child is born, to us a Son is given, and the government shall be upon His shoulder, and His name shall be called….”Prince of Peace” (Isa.9:6). A prince is the son of a king. Jesus was born into humanity as the “Prince of Peace, the Son of God.” He would some day be King Jesus – King of kings. But from being “Prince” to “King” Jesus had to do a lot of living as a human. He was tempted with all kinds of sins, like all humans are, but without falling into sin. Have you ever thought when Jesus was a child if He ever bickered and argued in anger like all other children do? Did He tell those childish “little white lies?” Did He disobey His parents and was He selfish and even at times was He hateful like other children – after all, He was human? The answer is no to all these sins – He was sinless from birth. Although He was born into a human body, He was born the God-man. Although human He retained His holiness (purity, separation from sin). The whole concept of the truth of Christ’s incarnation is incomprehensible to us. He was the first and the last sinless human. For this reason we can trust Him to cleanse us from all our sinfulness, to live in us and give us a perfect heart. He came as a Prince (Son) to bring peace to us who, because we were born “children of wrath” (born with a sin nature) and thus we have been at war with the Holy Father. There is no peace, nor rest like having the “war” ended. Only by accepting this “Prince of Peace” can we ever truly know peace of mind and heart. Jesus came as the Prince of Peace but having done His “work” for our peace, He now sits as the King of kings with the Father and desires that we rule and reign with Him in His kingdom of Peace. Wonderful Peace W.D. Cornell Far away in the depths of my spirit tonight rolls a melody sweeter than psalm; In celestial-like strains it unceasingly falls o’er my soul like an infinite calm. What a treasure I have in this wonderful peace buried deep in the heart of my soul, So secure that no power can mine it away while the years of eternity roll. I am resting tonight in this wonderful peace, resting sweetly in Jesus’ control, And I’m kept from all danger by night and by day – now His glory is flooding my soul. And I know when I rise to that city of peace where the Author of peace I shall see, That one of the anthems the ransomed will sing in that heavenly kingdom shall be: Peace! Peace! Wonderful peace, coming down from the Father above, Sweep over my spirit forever, I pray, in fathomless billows of love.