Marissa Henley

Encouraging weary women to hope in Christ alone

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Search Results for: behold your god

The Eternal Son of God

November 7, 2022 by Marissa 2 Comments

The animated version of Disney’s Aladdin has always been one of my favorite movies. (Probably because I saw it with my husband on our second date in 1992!) There are two scenes early in the story when Aladdin asks Jasmine to do something scary, like jumping out a window or hopping on a flying carpet. He holds out his hand and says, “Do you trust me?” Because it’s a movie, she says yes—even though she has very little knowledge on which to base her trust. 

If you are a Christian, you’ve put your trust in Jesus Christ for your salvation. But when you face scary, overwhelming, or difficult situations, you may wonder if you can continue to trust Him. God’s Word gives us evidence so we know He is worthy of our trust. 

In John 1, we find many of those reasons, and we’ll look at several over the next few weeks. John introduces us to God’s Son, referred to as the Word, this way: 

“In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.” (John 1:1)

The Word is eternal. Genesis 1:1 says, “In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth.” In the beginning, before creation began, the Word was there. John later explains that the “Word became flesh and dwelt among us”—God’s Son, Jesus Christ (John 1:14). 

The Word is divine. It’s not just that the Word was there or that the Word with with God—John makes the Son’s divinity clear with the simple statement, “and the Word was God.” All that’s true of God the Father—His holiness, love, faithfulness, sovereignty, power, wisdom, and so on—is also true of the Son. 

And the divine Word wasn’t just there in the beginning—He will be there in the end. In Revelation 1:17-18, Jesus says: “Fear not, I am the first and the last, and the living one. I died, and behold I am alive forevermore, and I have the keys of Death and Hades.” 

We place our trust in Christ because He is the eternal Son of God who took on flesh and lived and died for us. Because He is eternal, we can trust Him with our future, now and forever. 

No matter what you face this week, you can trust the eternal Son of God. 

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Jesus is God Incarnate

December 20, 2021 by Marissa Leave a Comment

How do you respond when someone walks in the door of your home? Your response will vary depending on who it is. If it’s your spouse or roommate, you might look up from your phone and ask how their day went. If it’s a grown child who’s returning home for the holidays, that moment will be much more significant and joyful. If it’s a stranger in a ski mask, the experience would be terrifying. 

We celebrate Christmas because of who Jesus is. The One whose arrival we celebrate is the Christ, the long-awaited Messiah, the everlasting Lord veiled in human flesh, as we see in verse 2 of “Hark! The Herald Angels Sing”: 

“Christ, by highest heaven adored, Christ, the everlasting Lord,

Late in time behold him come, offspring of the Virgin’s womb.

Veiled in flesh the Godhead see, hail the incarnate Deity,

Pleased as man with men to dwell, Jesus, our Immanuel.

Hark! the herald angels sing, ‘Glory to the newborn King.’”

Take a moment to wonder at this truth: the One who was adored in heaven as the everlasting Lord took on flesh in the womb of a young virgin and was born in a stable. Babies are born every second of every day—but this baby was God incarnate. 

The incarnation of Jesus refers to God the Son taking on human flesh so that He was fully human and fully God. We see this truth expressed in John’s gospel: 

“And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we have seen his glory, glory as of the only Son from the Father, full of grace and truth.” (John 1:14)

Because Jesus was fully God and fully man, His birth was unlike any other birth in the history of the world. As the Nicene Creed states, Jesus was “begotten of the Father . . .begotten, not made, being of one substance with the Father . . .” The One who took on flesh was God, and therefore He is worthy of our worship and praise. His birth in a stable—His coming to a world that desperately needed a Savior—gives us reason to sing, “Glory to the newborn King!” 

No matter what you face this week, celebrate Jesus Christ, the everlasting Lord who took on flesh and dwelt among us. 

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God Has Not Forgotten You {No Matter What Monday}

February 3, 2020 by Marissa Leave a Comment

Her dark brown eyes stared up at me from her bed, just above the bright floral comforter pulled up to her chin. She tried to sound casual as she asked her pressing bedtime questions: “Mom, which one of us do you love the most? Do you love Will more than me?” 

I tell my daughter I love her and prove it with my actions every day. And yet, when she watched me stop to comfort her hurting brother on my way to tuck her in, my daughter began to doubt my love for her. She questioned a basic truth that has been proven to her every day for her entire life. 

Her doubts sound a little too familiar.  

My heavenly Father has proven His love for me every day of my life. But when God delays in giving me something I think I need, I start to doubt. I question His timing, His provision, even His goodness. And the undercurrent of these doubts is this: “Does God still love me?” 

We might not say it out loud, but as we look at our struggles, we wonder: “Does God still love me?” We cried out to Him for healing, peace, deliverance, or strength, but it feels like He’s stopped in the hallway to care for someone else. 

And yet we see in Isaiah that God never forgets His children: 

“Can a woman forget her nursing child, that she should have no compassion on the son of her womb? Even these may forget, yet I will not forget you. Behold, I have engraved you on the palms of my hands; your walls are continually before me.” (Isaiah 49:15–16)

God has not forgotten you, His beloved child. He has engraved your name on His hands. Our Savior stretched out those hands on the cross and felt the nails drive through them to demonstrate the extent of His unfailing love for us (Rom. 5:8). 

When it seems like God is letting us down—when we don’t understand why He hasn’t swooped in and saved the day—let’s cling to the truth. We can have confidence in His unfailing kindness and love. His love for us is everlasting (Jer. 31:3).  

No matter what you face this week, your loving heavenly Father has not forgotten you, and He never will. 

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The Eternal Son of God {No Matter What Monday}

January 13, 2020 by Marissa 1 Comment

The animated version of Disney’s Aladdin has always been one of my favorite movies. (Probably because I saw it with my husband on our second date in 1992!) There are two scenes early in the story when Aladdin asks Jasmine to do something scary, like jumping out a window or hopping on a flying carpet. He holds out his hand and says, “Do you trust me?” Because it’s a movie, she says yes—even though she has very little knowledge on which to base her trust. 

If you are a Christian, you’ve put your trust in Jesus Christ for your salvation. But when you face scary, overwhelming, or difficult situations, you may wonder if you can continue to trust Him. God’s Word gives us evidence so we know He is worthy of our trust. 

In John 1, we find many of those reasons, and we’ll look at several over the next few weeks. John introduces us to God’s Son this way: 

“In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.” (John 1:1)

The Word is eternal. Genesis 1:1 tells us, “In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth.” And here John tells us that in the beginning, before creation began, the Word was there. John goes on to explain that this “Word became flesh and dwelt among us”—God’s Son, Jesus Christ (John 1:14). 

The Word is divine. It’s not just that the Word was there or that the Word with with God—John makes the Word’s divinity clear with the simple statement, “and the Word was God.” All that’s true of God the Father—His holiness, love, faithfulness, sovereignty, power, wisdom, and so on—is also true of the Son. 

And the divine Word wasn’t just there in the beginning—He will be there in the end. In Revelation 1:17-18, Jesus says: “Fear not, I am the first and the last, and the living one. I died, and behold I am alive forevermore, and I have the keys of Death and Hades.” 

No matter what you face this week, you can trust the eternal Son of God. 

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I write to remind myself of the truth of God's promises. I share my writing here in case you need to be reminded sometimes, too.

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