Daily devotion – Christmas is coming
Mat 24:38 “For as in the days before the flood, they were eating and drinking, marrying and giving in marriage, until the day that Noah entered the ark,
Luk 17:27 “They ate, they drank, they married wives, they were given in marriage, until the day that Noah entered the ark, and the flood came and destroyed them all.
It’s just 52 days until Christmas 2023 is with us. Our world changed dramatically again this year. Jesus said at the Olivet discourse that the events leading to His return would come as labour pains to an expectant mother. With one surge, a rest and then another surge.
We can look back and see how we have grown, and we can also see where we fell at places where we had promised God we would not repeat our foolish sins again.
We cast our eyes to the horizon and see 2024 beginning to rise and wonder what will this new year bring. But for many, nothing changed in 2023 in their relationship with God and if past history is an indicator of the future, nothing may change in this regard in 2024.
The Christian life is two parts. Firstly, our eternal destination and salvation is complete in Christ through His death and Resurrection and His blessed grace bestowed upon us.
But there is a second part. A part that grows each in day in faith and trust. In our daily lives we see seek to know Him more, to serve Him in a greater capacity and to be more like Him!
Growing in God is what a healthy believers life is. The writer to the Hebrew believers admonished them for NOT maturing – Hebrews 5: 12 For though by this time you ought to be teachers, you need someone to teach you again the first principles of the oracles of God; and you have come to need milk and not solid food. 13 For everyone who partakes only of milk is unskilled in the word of righteousness, for he is a babe. 14 But solid food belongs to those who are of full age, that is, those who by reason of use have their senses exercised to discern both good and evil.
Each week I am burdened to know the Lord in a greater way. Helen and I pray each day that God would help us by His Holy Spirit to know and understand His Word more than today.
The Christian life is never one of ease and sitting back. It is one of servanthood, of action, it is a life that expresses our faith in all that we do and say.
Looking back over 2023, let us see where we have grown, and also let us see the areas in our lives where we need to lean in closer to our Lord’s chest and repent of our old ways that we may be more like Him.
Christmas each year as it comes, bring to me a sense of freshness and hope. For the Christmas story tells us that Christ came to save us. That He came to reveal Himself to us and that we could know Him in such an intimate way.
Christmas also tells us the story of surrender and obedience, that Christ rose from Heaven and placed upon Himself the body of a mere man. So that we could be saved.
Phil 2: 6 Though he was God,
he did not think of equality with God
as something to cling to.
7 Instead, he gave up his divine privileges;
he took the humble position of a slave
and was born as a human being.
When he appeared in human form,
8 he humbled himself in obedience to God
and died a criminal’s death on a cross.
Our Lord demonstrated that idleness achieves nothing, and that love is always a verb, it is always a doing word.
Christmas is close, are you excited about rejoicing and celebrating once again the greatest story ever told – His story – is our history!
Read your Bible, pray, serve the Lord, be active in His Church and your life will grow expeditiously. We are living in surely one of the most exciting times in our planet’s history.
Christ is soon to return, Bible prophecy is about to unfold into the final pieces prior to Christ’s Second Coming and meanwhile a world, with head down, going about its business in ignorance, is unaware of the most wonderous events that are about to occur!