Daily devotion – what Christmas teaches us!
Have you ever felt unequipped to do anything for God? I watch people who play in our worship team and ponder how awesome it would be to be able to firstly, read music, secondly, to play the piano or the drums. How enjoyable it must be to be able to so in praise and honour of God.
But alas its not going to happen!
There are many times when we read God’s word that we are amazed at the people God raised up and equipped. People like Noah, or Joshua or Caleb. Dare I mention one of the judges here -Gideon. Remember when God called him?
At that moment in his life Gideon was not setting the world on fire for God – pretty much the opposite in fact. Let me refresh your memory.
Judges 6: 11 Then the angel of the LORD came and sat beneath the great tree at Ophrah, which belonged to Joash of the clan of Abiezer. Gideon son of Joash was threshing wheat at the bottom of a winepress to hide the grain from the Midianites. 12 The angel of the LORD appeared to him and said, “Mighty hero, the LORD is with you!”
13 “Sir,” Gideon replied, “if the LORD is with us, why has all this happened to us? And where are all the miracles our ancestors told us about? Didn’t they say, ‘The LORD brought us up out of Egypt’? But now the LORD has abandoned us and handed us over to the Midianites.”
14 Then the LORD turned to him and said, “Go with the strength you have, and rescue Israel from the Midianites. I am sending you!”
15 “But Lord,” Gideon replied, “how can I rescue Israel? My clan is the weakest in the whole tribe of Manasseh, and I am the least in my entire family!”
16 The LORD said to him, “I will be with you. And you will destroy the Midianites as if you were fighting against one man.”
Gideon was not someone we would pick to do what he did but God enabled him to achieve a win in a mighty battle when he was enormously outnumbered.
But I mention all this to take you to a cave in Bethlehem, used as a stable and a young couple by the name of Joseph and Mary. You are all familiar with the Christmas story. The night Jesus was born, that first Christmas. After the birth had occurred and Mary has fed and comforted baby Jesus and placed Him in a manger to sleep.
Right at that moment put yourself in Joseph and young Mary’s shoes. They are the parents who have been given the promised Messiah to now care for and raise. Joseph must have pondered along with his young wife Mary, “Now what do we do? I am to be His earthly father and you His earthly mother!” What an assignment!
But God chose these two ordinary people, a young carpenter and a young Jewish girl to care for His only Son, Jesus the Christ.
We each have been given a gift, we each have been given commands by God. To obey and serve in the Kingdom of God and to bring glory to His name.
God enabled Joseph and indeed Mary, and they did a magnificent job did they not?
They never shirked the task, said, “Sorry can’t do this!” They faithfully and obediently went about the awesome role of being Jesus earthly parents.
God has chosen you – for tasks that are beyond our imagination – but He will enable you to do them!
Make Christmas in your life this year a personal invite from God to step out, to step up and to step into, that which He has planned for you. Use Joseph and Mary as your mentors and diligently without hesitation, live to be the person God has planned you to be in His Kingdom and plans.