Month: December 2023

An overwhelmed Job in the midst of his physical suffering & spiritual desolation lamented in Job 3:25-26, ” What I feared has come upon me; what I dreaded has happened to me. I have no peace, no quietness; I have no rest but only turmoil.” Job had realized that trouble was a very real part of life & living in a very broken world amongst very broken people. Jesus even assured His disciples that trouble would follow them when He said, “In this world you will have trouble…” (John 16:33) So as we move into the new year, one thing that can be guaranteed is that we will have trouble, suffering, pain, and tribulation in some fashion….there’s no way around it. But also know that the Lord is there to protect, comfort, and save us from those troubles. Psalm 34 is full of reminders that when we cry out, God will deliver us out of all our troubles…and that is what we can take into the new year.

Elsewhere in Psalms we read, “For with You is the fountain of life; in Your light we see light.” (Psalm 36:9) Our source of life & truth is in God and God alone. And just like physical thirst, we have Spiritual thirst…but the choice is ours where we go looking for water & refreshment to quench this thirst. The water of the world will leave us dry & thirsty…always searching for more, but the spring of water of life is lifegiving. (Revelations 21:6) And it’s with joy we can draw water from this well of Salvation. (Isaiah 12:3) John called Jesus, “the true light coming into the world”, and it’s with this light of truth we then need to discern just where we’ve been drawing water from.

As this year comes to an end, my question to you today is – Are you looking ahead to 2024 with hope? Now as a Believer, hope is the assurance of something not yet fully experienced and quite different from the uncertain and wishful thinking of the world. This confident hope in Jesus will never disappoint, but as it says here, it’s guaranteed by the love of God that the Holy Spirit pours into our hearts. Thus, we can go into 2024 equipped with faith, trust, and courage to face any obstacle that comes our way.

The shepherds stood in wonder at His birth. For what the angels had proclaimed to them was true. The Messiah had been born & they had been the first to witness His arrival. Soon they spread The Good News to everyone, and all who heard it were amazed.

The soldiers stood in wonder at His death. These Gentile Roman soldiers may not have known Old Testament Jewish prophecy – but in wonderment they made an appropriate confession of Jesus’ identity when they proclaimed in Matthew 27:54, “Truly this was the Son of God!”

The witnesses stood in wonder at His resurrection. In Luke 24:50-53, Jesus’ followers stand in utter amazement as He ascended in Shekinah glory – a moment of remarkable splendor as God’s radiant glory was manifested for them to see.

Someday the entire world will stand in wonder at His return. Across Scriptures we see it – Isaiah 45:23, Romans 14:11, and Philippians 2:10 all allude to the Second Coming of Christ when all mankind will stand before the Judgment Seat in total submission. ” Jesus the Name above every Name – so that at the Name of Jesus every knee should bow and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord.”

The source of all of Jesus’ teachings came directly from His Father…He made this very plain from the start of His Ministry here on earth. Also plain from the start was His absolute resolve to obey His Father’s Will and not His own. We see this in the garden when He prayed, “Yet not as I will, but as You Will.” (Matthew 26:39) Everyday we’re making the same kind of conscious decisions of following our own will or God’s…but we’ll soon discover that if we earnestly seek to do God’s Will over ours, His plan & purpose for our life will blossom & grow into something beautiful indeed.

Mercy…Jesus spoke of it in Matthew 5:7, “Blessed are the merciful, for they will be shown mercy.” In I Peter 1:3, the idea of mercy is taken a little farther, “In His great mercy He has given us new birth into a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ.” Mercy is connected to God’s covenant and the basis of our trust in Him to Salvation. And by showing mercy in this present unredeemed world, we are promised we will receive it in the life to come. But understand this, God’s mercy isn’t a reward we somehow earn, but rather, as we recognize the true height & depth of His mercy towards us, we in turn out of our profound gratefulness, desire to show the same compassion to others. We receive mercy in order to show it to others… plain & simple.

To have unwavering trust in the promises of God…to have a steadfast belief in all His Words, no matter what, we need to know what they are. For how can we rely on something we haven’t read for ourselves? The answer is simple, you need to be in His Word on a regular basis in order to build a firm foundation upon His very great & precious promises. (II Peter 1:4) For only there you will find peace, security, & comfort against any storm that comes into your life.  May the Lord bless you with a very amazing Christmas, today & and for the year to come.

A King should come in a gold coach drawn by white horses…this King came on the back of a donkey. A King should come in the prime of the day with people cheering, trumpets blasting, and flags flying high welcoming him…this King in the quiet silence of the darkened streets of Bethlehem. No crowds to welcome Him, no trumpets or flags…just the sound of the donkey’s shuffling along the street. A King should come with all the opulence and honor due him as he arrives at his castle…this King arrived at a stable with no fanfare, just the watchful eyes of the cattle & sheep to attend Him. That night mankind was silent, not even realizing that the King of Kings had been born…but the angels couldn’t contain themselves, so instead, the angels proclaimed His birth. Glory to God! Christ is born!

The birth of Jesus Christ put into motion the beginning of God’s redemptive plan…a plan that would change the world forever. Ephesians 1:7 tells us, “In Him we have redemption through His blood, and the forgiveness of sins…” So think of it this way…Jesus was born to rescue us from sin, through His sacrificial death on the Cross. For our world was once a perfect place to live, but now it’s broken by sinfulness. But if we repent & trust in Jesus, and ask Him into our life, we can be restored, forgiven, and saved…becoming a new creation. Christ’s birth brought God to man; the Cross of Christ brought man to God and with it the gift of eternal life. So we should care about the Nativity…for it was there that God made a way, away in the manger…the greatest gift on earth.

Caesar Augustus ordered a census of the entire Roman Empire with everyone going to their hometown to register. It tells us in Luke 2:4 that, ” Joseph went up from the town of Nazareth in Galilee to Judea, to Bethlehem the town of David, because he belonged to the house and line of David.” It was custom to travel to your ancestral home so that families could be counted together…and since Joseph was of the lineage & descendance of King David, off he went dutifully, with Mary his betrothed in tow.  But why the undistinguished & insignificant little town of Bethlehem (located about 5 miles Southwest of Jerusalem)? It was commonly known among the people that the Messiah would come from that unimportant tiny town…first prophesied in Micah 5:2, that God would raise up a Ruler from David’s lineage…a King that would rule & reign forever…Jesus Christ Himself. So in the eyes of most, Bethlehem wasn’t a prominent town…but to God it was of the upmost importance to His plan of Salvation.