Devotionals for December 4th – 8th

Dec. 4

Preparations Must Be Done
Luke 10:38-42

Some of Jesus’ favorite people seem to be Mary, Martha, and Lazarus. One time Jesus was invited to their home for a meal.

Like many cultures and homes, usually the women would all gather in the kitchen and get to work. Prepping the vegetables, seasoning this and that, complaining that their kids or husbands recently broke their best serving dishes.

The men would gather in another room and discuss more important issues such as: why are taxes so high when they never fix the roads, who’s turn is it this month to mow the yard at the temple, exactly how big was the fish that got away last week, and maybe even did Jesus really say/do what we just heard/saw?

It seems on this occasion there was just Martha and Mary there to take care of all these men. Martha, being the older more responsible one, is toiling away in the kitchen. Keeping the fire going while trying to put together a meal fit for the kings. She is busy cleaning some fish when she calls out for Mary to check the bread. She gets no response. So she calls out again. No response.

Martha had just assumed that Mary was in the kitchen helping. Imagine her disgust and despair to look and find Mary sitting at Jesus feet listening to the discussions in the other room.

Martha knew her job and the job of the women of the day and realizing Jesus is the authority, approaches Jesus and asks him to set Mary straight. Martha needs help and Mary isn’t in her proper place.

All that Martha was doing was good and proper. Someone had to prepare the meal. Someone had to be the hostess with the most. Jesus, however, tells Martha that Mary is doing the more important thing of spending time with Jesus.

Jesus tells Martha that she is anxious, nervous, and concerned over little things. I say little things, because Jesus then tells Martha that the necessary thing is to be with and enjoy Jesus’ presence.

Preparation must be done, there can be no doubt. However, are we preparing for the right things?

Are you making room for Jesus?

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Dec. 5

Prepare the Way

His name was John. This wild looking man wearing funny clothes and eating strange things just doesn’t seem to fit in with the shepherds and wise men and the other characters that we traditionally associate with the Christmas story.

A number of people began to think of John himself as the long awaited Messiah. The Bible says, “There was a man sent from God whose name was John, He came for testimony to bear witness to the light that all might believe through him. He was not the light, but he came to bear witness to the light.”

John the Baptist prepared the way by pointing to Jesus.

There comes a moment when a teacher/preacher longs for his hearers to lose sight of everything except his message. Don’t listen to the accent. Don’t look at my clothes. Don’t comment on my style. Don’t search for the details of my past. Just listen to what I am saying. I am a voice.

It was John’s crowning glory to point others to the soon coming Messiah.

There is no greater privilege given to any person on this side of heaven than to point people to the Lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world.

John the Baptist prepared the way.

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Dec. 6

Spoiled Rotten?!

I remember the Christmas morning of 1986 very well. I was 11 years old; my anticipation had built fiercely around the Nintendo Entertainment System since it’s North American release in September of 1986. To say that I was excited about getting one of these was a complete understatement. I remember browsing through the Sears Catalog and constantly pointing out this video game system to my parents, and I’m sure driving them crazy at every opportunity I had to mention it. It was all I could talk about…all I could think about…I was consumed and obsessed by this simple electronic device. In my mind, all my friends had one or were getting one, and I thought I would be the coolest kid on the block if I had this thing, no more throwing your quarters at the arcade, I could play all the games I wanted right at home. I would be the envy of all who did not have what I had!

That Christmas morning as my family and I opened our presents, I rushed through opening all my gifts, anxiously searching for the one and only thing I wanted, my heart’s desire, my Nintendo. I got to the last package, and it wasn’t there! Something was wrong, my parents knew how badly I wanted this machine, how I asked daily for it for Christmas. How could they deny me
my request?

Something snapped inside of me, and angrily I threw a temper tantrum that only a spoiled rotten 11-year-old would do, accusing my parents of all sorts of atrocities and lack of love for me. In that moment, my father had had enough. He angrily snapped at me, “It’s in my closet, you big baby!!”

As an adult and father myself, I have now fully realized how disrespectful and dishonorable this behavior was that I displayed so selflessly for my parents that Christmas morning. I was concerned only about my own selfish desires, about childish things that do not matter.

1 Corinthians 13:11-13 says “When I was a child, I spoke like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child. When I became a man, I gave up childish ways. For now we see in a mirror dimly, but then face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I have been fully known. So now faith, hope, and love abide, these three; but the greatest of these is love.”

As a father, I must strive to teach my children to fight the sinful nature that we are born into, to deny ourselves in the service of others, to give wholeheartedly and not expect to be reciprocated for our giving. Christ did this for us, giving us the ultimate undeserved gift of eternal life and grace. The Son of God left his heavenly home to be born of a virgin, both fully God and fully man. He died on a criminal’s cross, and then defeated death by rising from the grave, all because He loves me. His gift is perfect and free to those who will decide to follow Him.

I don’t understand love and grace like He gives me; but I’m thankful that my Heavenly Father doesn’t forsake me and chooses to correct my ways and convict me of my trespasses despite my sinful nature and selfish desires.

This Christmas, will you crave and desire childish things? Or will you put these desires away and strive to be like our Savior?

Colin McInnes

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Dec. 7

Has God Spoken

The first recorded question in human history still demands an answer. While in the Garden of Eden, Satan in the form of a serpent, came upon Adam and Eve with the purpose of engendering doubt. He asked, “Did God really say….”

What a difference it makes whether or not God has revealed His thoughts to mankind. If God has revealed his plan for His creation and has made it known, then we have an obligation to listen to Him. If He hasn’t, we have no obligation to Him, we can do as we please.

Logic leads us to believe that God actually spoke to Adam and Eve as the Bible states, though Satan insinuates that he hadn’t.

Hebrews 1:1-2 says, “In the past God spoke….”  There’s the answer to Satan’s question! A loving, living God speaks!  How and by what means did God speak? The climax came when God sent His one and only Son to this earth of ours so we could hear His words of life to each of us.

In John 1:1,14 and Revelation 19:13 the Bible says that Jesus is called the “Word of God.”  Why? We express our thoughts one to another in words. God expressed His thoughts to us through His Son. By Him we know what God is like, and from his lips and actions we know what God is saying to us.

How does a child learn to talk? By hearing others speak.

When Adam was created, how did he learn to speak? An articulate God, who brought him into existence, chose to reveal His thinking by means of words.

In the birth of Jesus we have the clearest evidence that God is speaking to His creation today. Yes, God has spoken and continues to speak. We have the responsibility to hear and heed what He has said.

“Hear, O heavens, and give ear, O earth: for the Lord has spoken.” Isaiah 1:2

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Dec. 8

Waiting

As a child I remember that the most difficult part of Christmas was waiting for it to come. Days seemed like weeks. Weeks seemed like months. Time seemed to stand still.

Waiting is hard for our society. It’s unnatural. We like the immediate gratification. The idea that we have to delay our satisfaction is beyond our comprehension.

The symbols of our unwillingness to wait are all around us. I don’t have to mention them because even now you wish that I would get to the point.

The problem is that scripture time and time again tells us that God’s clock is wound in a different way. Time is different with God.  We look at seconds, minutes, and hours, where God looks at ages or seasons. We need to fit into God’s frame of mind and not the other way around.

And that’s where the  Christmas story comes into view. It actually begins thousands of years before the birth of Christ. Years ago people longed for that One who would bring light out of darkness, and make the blind to see. There was a desire for that one who would turn their sorrow into joy, and vanquish their enemies. New Testament writers were well aware of the Old
Testament references.

Look at them:
Matthew 1:21-23 says the virgin conception of Jesus is found in Isa. 7:14. John 7:42 says his birth in Bethlehem is found in Micah 5:2. Matthew 2:15 points to the family fleeing to Egypt in Hosea 11:1. Mark 1:2 finds the ministry of John the Baptist in Malachi 3:1. Luke 18:32 recognizes the suffering Messiah in Isaiah 53:3. There are dozens more in the Gospels, and even more throughout the New Testament.

Abraham waited for that which he could not see, a son. Moses waited for that which he could not see, the promised land. Mary waited for that which she could not see, a son. We wait. We wait for that which we cannot see, a heavenly home.

What are you waiting for?

For the believer Christmas is a time of waiting. “In the fullness of time” God came to this earth, and in the fullness of time Jesus is going to come again. We long for the day when He will fulfill scripture. But for now, we wait.