Advent Devotion (Day 12) - He Chose the Stable

She gave birth to her  firstborn, a son. She wrapped him in cloths and placed him in a manger, because there was no room available for them in the inn. – Luke 2:7

"God chose the stable for His Son to be born in for a very important reason. You see, when God sent His only Son to live on this earth, He made a strategic decision not to shelter Him from the harsh realities of this life. God had no intention of shielding His Son by having Him born into the make-believe world of the rich and famous.

God wanted His Son to experience life in its blue-collar boldness. Jesus’ first breath of air burned with the odor of animal urine. The first noises He heard were the grunts of livestock. Jesus’ first outfit was made of dust cloths, or the equivalent of grease rags. From day one, God the Father determined not to shelter His Son from the rude, crude realities of life on planet Earth.

For our sake, Jesus was given no aristocratic advantage. He had humbler beginnings than any of us. He was born into a real family, and He worked a real construction job. He lived in a neighborhood. He had real friends. He suffered hardship like the rest of us have, and He died a cruel death for a crime He didn’t commit.

So when the Bible urges people who are going through disappointment and pain to pour their hearts out to the now-ascended Savior, we Christians can do so with the absolute assurance that Jesus understands. He’s been there.

Life without advantage? He lived it.
Shortage, poverty? He’s been there.
Discrimination, oppression? Jesus was a refugee before His second birthday.
Rejection? He experienced it.
Ridicule? It was a part of His daily life
Abandonment? By lifelong friends in His greatest time of need.
Death of loved ones? Multiple times.
Physical pain? More than you or I will probably ever experience.

Has some experience in your life driven you to within an inch of your breaking point? Has some experience hurt you so deeply that you’ve wanted to cry out, “I can’t go on because nobody understands!”? If so, look at the stable. Be reminded this Christmas that Jesus understands. He’s been there. He can identify with you no matter what you’re going through. What’s more, you matter to Him more than you can possibly imagine.

Can you see how important the stable is? It symbolizes the deliberately unsheltered life of Jesus. It stands as a monument to His ability to identify and sympathize with whatever we are going through. But we must be humble and trusting enough to pour out our hearts to Him and then allow Him to love and minister to us, and restore us to wholeness again.

The essence of Christianity is a relationship with a resurrected Savior. It’s a dynamic restorative relationship, and it’s with One who understands."  Bill Hybels

Christmas Devotion (Day 10) - Salvation Through Death

Read Isaiah 52:13-53:12

Isaiah 53:4-5 - Surely he has borne our griefs and carried our sorrows; yet we esteemed him stricken, smitten by God, and afflicted. But he was pierced for our transgressions; he was crushed for our iniquities; upon him was the chastisement that brought us peace, and with his wounds we are healed. 
As we read a few lessons ago, the prophecies for the Messiah were not all about strength and power and victory. Our Scripture reading today could seem like a complete defeat – but it is actually victory God’s way. 

Messiah was coming, but He must first do a very difficult job. He must come to take care of our sin problem. Sin is such a problem because the only penalty for it is death. There is no sentence of prison time or payment or good work anyone can ever do to pay for even one sin. And once we are physically dead, the death sentence cannot be reversed unless our spirits have been made alive before our bodies died.

Jesus came to earth for one purpose – to die. He told Pilate at His trial that His purpose was Truth – and the most basic Truth is that sin causes death and there is only one way to escape death – Jesus.

Our Scripture reading says, in Verse 4, some may see God the Father as the cause of Jesus’ suffering – but the truth is, WE are the cause of Jesus’ suffering. He came to pay the price for us because of His great love for us.

*What makes you certain Jesus has given you eternal life and forgiveness?

Advent Devotion (Day 11) - God Sends a Baby

           
                        While they were there, the time came for the baby to be born.      – Luke 2:6


It is the year 1809 and "men were following with bated breath the march of Napoleon and waiting feverishly for news of the war. And all the while in their own homes, babies were being born. But who could think about babies? Everybody was thinking about battles.

In one year, there stole into a world a host of heroes. Gladstone was born in Liverpool, England, and Tennyson at Somersby. Oliver Wendell Holmes was born in Massachusetts. Abraham Lincoln drew his first breath in Old Kentucky, and music was enriched by the birth of Felix Mendelssohn in Hamburg.

But nobody thought about babies. Everybody was thinking about battles. Yet, which of the battles of 1809 mattered more than the babies that were born in 1809?

We fancy that God can only manage His world through the big battalions of life, when all the while He is doing it through the beautiful babies that are being born into the world. When a wrong wants righting, or a truth wants preaching, or a continent wants opening, God sends a baby into the world to do it.

And where do you find God on Christmas? In a manger. A baby was born at the heart of the Roman Empire, and when the Roman Empire would crumble and fall, that baby, who would become a man, would also become Savior of the world. " John Maxwell

Christmas Devotion (Day 9) - Fully Human and Fully God

Read Isaiah 49:1-6

Isaiah 49:1 - Listen to me, O coastlands, and give attention, you peoples from afar. The LORD called me from the womb, from the body of my mother he named my name. 

One of the most difficult things for some people to believe is that if we say Jesus is God, how could He also be human? Many insist being human would be too humiliating for God. 

But we read in John 1:1-14 how the Word, the Messiah, was truly God and yet “the Word became flesh.” This does not mean God had sex with Mary to have a baby with her – even this thought is offensive. Instead, God simply did a miracle in Mary, giving her a child as no other woman in history has ever had a child. The miracle is the same as when God had shaped a man’s body from dirt, He breathed into the body’s nose and the body became a living man – Adam. God can, and did in Mary’s case, make a woman pregnant without sex. No other woman has had this happen before or after Mary. 

Jesus the Messiah was, and still is, unique. He has always been God and always will be; and at this time in history He took on human flesh so we could see and understand God better.

*What is the greatest miracle God has done in your life?*

Advent Devotion (Day 10) - Why Lord?

So Joseph also 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. He went there to register with Mary, who was pledged to be married to him and was also expecting a child.  Luke 2:4-5

What an inconvenience. The journey from Nazareth to Bethlehem is eighty-five to ninety miles by the shortest route (through Samaria). Whether on foot or riding a donkey, the trip would take several days and would be difficult for a pregnant woman. To bring the journey into perspective, think of a place eighty or ninety miles from your home. Then imagine walking that distance—and then walking the return trip. Even mounted on a donkey, it would be an unpleasant journey.

This young couple may have wondered why? Why is this happening Lord? This is her first baby...Your son. Wouldn't it be better to give birth at home, with our families, with her mother to help her? Why now?

It would have been a costly journey as well for this family who had little to begin with. And potentially dangerous due to bandits along the way.

But maybe, just maybe, God was preparing Joseph and Mary for another journey they would need to take. A journey that would not only have them leaving their home but leaving their country.

Not more than two years later, the Jewish King Herod would find out about Jesus being born (from the wise men) and would do his best to kill him. "When they (the wise men) had gone, an angel of the Lord appeared to Joseph in a dream. “Get up,” he said, “take the child and his mother and escape to Egypt. Stay there until I tell you, for Herod is going to search for the child to kill him.” So he got up, took the child and his mother during the night and left for Egypt, where he stayed until the death of Herod. And so was fulfilled what the Lord had said through the prophet: “Out of Egypt I called my son.” Matthew 2:13-15

Often times the Lord works that way. He allows a difficulty, an inconvenience, a problem to enter our life in order to prepare us, train us, get us ready for something in the future. Something we have no idea about. Something that will require quick obedience and unfailing trust in the Lord. But just as God was with Mary and Joseph on both of these journeys, He is with us also no matter where we have to go.