Guess what? I don’t’ know everything. I don’t know everything about the Bible, about God, about life’s problems, about death and the afterlife, sometimes I don’t even know everything there is to know about me. (Actually that happens many times.) In fact, sometimes in my church I’m the last one to know anything. Sometimes people avoid telling me things either because they think I already know or they don’t want me to know.
Do you need reminding that change is coming and there is a purpose to life?
Jesus experienced something I think most of us have at times as believers. Sometimes the hardest people to witness to are those we love and know the most. I know countless pastors who have lost siblings, parents and childhood friends, but have limited success witnessing to them.
One Saturday morning some 2,000 years ago, surely there was a group of mixed-up, hurting, confused, sickly, tired, afraid, and desperate people. They had placed all their hopes in a man who claimed to be the promised Messiah. They were there when their hope was nailed to a cross. They watched their mentor and friend die a cruel death. What would they do now? What was next?
Some of my best growth times with the Lord have been during teaching times with my children. I remember when my son asked an important question, “Daddy, what is the ‘will of God’?”
It shouldn’t surprise us that animals may have witnessed the birth of the Christ child. Jesus was the Creator. He was with God from the very beginning, planning each intricate part of Creation. All creation, with the exception of man, naturally glorifies the Creator by unconditional obedience.
Stop for just a moment and think about God. God is so big that He spoke a universe into existence. That same God sacrificed His only Son so that you and I could find our way back to Him. Can you love a God like that? Can you serve a God like that? Does your life and celebration this year reflect the depth of your love?
But then there is Christmas, Praise God! Jesus did come on that dark night some 2000 years ago! He came so that through Him we can be saved, completely forgiven of our sins, and enter the presence of a Holy God!
I love to study the images of Christmas. This year a new image came to me; one I had not considered before, which really is the combination of two images I have studied many times.
