It was a very early start to the day, Father, but thank You for Your guiding presence. And thank You too, Father, for good people with whom to work. None of us are perfect but I am truly blessed to call them friends.

Matthew 21:1-11 (<<click to read the passage)

For some, it is easy to think of Jesus as just another character in the Bible. And as I typed that sentence my mind raced ahead and asked, “How in the world do I follow up that statement?” Many of us could make an exhaustive list of why Jesus doesn’t fit into that category – especially if we put our heads together!

But something worthy of note in regards to our Savior is the fact that His coming was anything but happenstance. The whole affair was planned out in great detail from before the beginning of time. The Old Testament is full of prophetic statements of wheres and hows of Jesus’ life.

We have a great example in this passage – more than 500 years before the events in this passage took place the prophet Zechariah wrote of them. Here is Zechariah 9:9, the passage quoted by Matthew in his Gospel, as found in the New American Standard Bible,

Rejoice greatly, O daughter of Zion!
Shout in triumph, O daughter of Jerusalem!
Behold, your king is coming to you;
He is [vindicated and victorious] just and endowed with salvation,
Humble, and mounted on a donkey,
Even on a colt, the foal of a donkey.

Christ coming was no mistake. He was not just born as we were. He and the Father did not just hope that everything came together. It was laid out with one single thing in mind – our salvation!

16 “For this is how God loved the world: He gave his one and only Son, so that everyone who believes in him will not perish but have eternal life. 17 God sent his Son into the world not to judge the world, but to save the world through him.” John 3:16-17 NLT

As I’ve quoted numerous times,

Even before he made the world, God loved us and chose us in Christ to be holy and without fault in his eyes. Ephesians 1:4 NLT

We were no accident! God deliberately– even knowing in advance that we would reject Him! – He deliberately made provision for our reconciliation to Him. Thank You, Lord!

Aug 27th, 2018, Mon, 4:34 pm