When Jesus came to earth as a baby born of the Virgin Mary, all of Heaven rejoiced and proclaimed, “It’s a boy!” God had specifically planned this very moment in time as is shown by the perfect patter of the stars in the universe that at the moment Jesus was born there was a star above Him in Bethlehem so that all who saw it knew the Messiah had come. Angels rejoiced and proclaimed this news to the shepherds. And while this was a joyous moment in history, the story goes on to tell of Christ’s death, what He had come to earth to do to be the sacrifice on our behalf. Because of His death and resurrection, we can accept the salvation that He now offers, be born again, and proclaim, “It’s a boy!” that now lives inside us when we are saved.
December 25, 2011
When Jesus came to earth and was born in a barn in Bethlehem, the shepherds, wise men, and all the others that got to physically see Him on earth were privileged. When He died on the cross and rose again, some of the disciples got to see Him right away while others, Thomas in particular, would not believe until they saw Him. Even though Jesus revealed Himself to Thomas, wiping away his doubts, Jesus said that those who believe without seeing Him will be blessed. That means us because we believe in Jesus without being able to see Him except through people who have allowed Christ to come in and transform their lives. While we are here on earth, we can be the Nativity Scenes that people need to see in order to believe.
December 23, 2011
While Christmas time encourages family togetherness, not many people come from a stable family. The only way to have a truly stable family is if Jesus is in that family. People get too caught up in buying all the right gifts for each other and spending way to much money, while all the while none of those gifts can change the stableness of the relationships with members of their family. The only way that people will know about the hope that we have in Christ is if we tell them. When Jesus lives in someone, no matter what their family looks like, they can never be alone because He is always with them.
December 22, 2011
Starting in the beginning and going throughout the Bible are prophecies of Jesus coming as to the world as a baby born of a virgin. Even though these were the prophecies that the religious Jewish people knew, it’s as though they were still looking for something different when it came to their long-awaited Messiah. And yet exactly as it was foretold, the New Testament tells of Jesus’ birth, proving every prophecy proclaimed in history about His coming to earth to be true. The Christmas story is summed up to say that Jesus, the Son of God, took on flesh and dwelt among us in the world.
December 21, 2011
After Jesus was born in Bethlehem, the Ruler had heard about it and felt threatened, therefore making a decree to kill all the young boys in the land. An angel of God warned Joseph about this in a dream and told him to take Mary and Jesus up to Egypt in Africa. God had already supplied them with what they would need to go and so Joseph obeyed immediately. When God tells us something, whether directly or verified by others, we need to obey immediately no matter what it is He’s telling us to do because the only safe place to truly be is exactly where He has called you.
December 19, 2011
When the angel, Gabriel, came to Mary to tell her that she would give birth to God’s Son, she was puzzled but trusted that God could accomplish the impossible since she had never been with a man. God did accomplish the impossible and made Mary pregnant with Jesus while she was still a virgin, and she gave birth to Him and He lived among us on the earth, experiencing human life first hand. It is this same Jesus that comes to live in us when we surrender our lives to Him, and He works in us in seemingly impossible ways to make us more like Him so that we can’t help but to speak His name to others around us. Rather than looking at what is humanly possible when God is involved, we should give ourselves to Him, trusting that He can do whatever He pleases.
December 14, 2011