[Darris McNeely] Why was Jesus born? We've talked about when He was born in an earlier daily, but let's look at the question why was Jesus born. I think that's an important one when you look just at the account we have in Luke and Matthew regarding the birth of Jesus as a human being.

Now you might say He was born to die for our sins. He was born to be our Savior. He came to reveal to us the Father. He also came to show us how to live. All of those are true, but why in the flesh? And what was the significance of that as it was announced to Mary that she would bear a son? Luke 1:31 it says, "Behold you will conceive in your womb and bring forth a son and shall call His name Jesus." Now in Matthew's account, Matthew 1:21 it says, "She shall bring forth a son. You shall call His name Jesus for He shall save His people from their sins."

That's what the name Jesus does mean: savior, that He will save people from their sins. The important matter to understand is that mankind does need a savior to get us out of this condition of humanity and the separation from God. And even though we may not know that, we really do. And in Jesus we have a source of eternal life and also a way to understand how to live today.

One of the other things that Jesus said when He did come, He said this in John 10:10, He said, "I have come that they might have life, and that they might have it more abundantly." Through His teachings, through His life, Jesus showed us how to live today. He also showed us how we have the hope through His life, death, and His resurrection of living forever, eternal in the Kingdom of God He is going to bring to this earth.

That's why when you look at the accounts of the very simple, straight forward accounts of His birth as Luke and Matthew record them for us in the gospels He has come in the fulfillment of the scriptures that's foretold, an Emmanuel, a God being with us in the flesh, sharing this life, showing us how to live, and showing us how the hope of eternal life can be realized.

That's why it was so important that they got the name right, that when the angel appeared and said you are going to have a child, and you will call Him Jesus. In that name was the fullness of the understanding of the name by which all men can be saved and have the hope of eternal life. That's why Jesus came in the flesh, born of a virgin as a child, and that is at the heart of that story that began His life and helps to offer to us the hope of eternal life. It's important we get that story right so that we too, as we continue to say, can worship Him in spirit and in truth.

That's BT Daily. Join us next time.