In Bethlehem, the human being who best understood who God was and what He was doing, was a teenage girl in a smelly stable. As Mary looked into the face of the baby, her son, her Lord, His majesty—she couldn’t take her eyes off Him. Somehow Mary knew she was holding God. So this is He. And she remembered the words of the angel when he said, “His kingdom will never end!”
He looked like anything but a King. His cry, though strong and healthy, was still the helpless and piercing cry of a baby. Majesty in the midst of the mundane. Holiness in the filth of sheep manure and sweat. Divinity entering the world on the floor of a stable, through the womb of a teenager and in the presence of a carpenter. God came near! Luke 1:33 says, “His kingdom will never end!” May you be a part of it.
From In the Manger
Acts 12
James Is Killed and Peter Is Imprisoned
About that time King Herod Agrippa[a] began to persecute some believers in the church. 2 He had the apostle James (John’s brother) killed with a sword. 3 When Herod saw how much this pleased the Jewish people, he also arrested Peter. (This took place during the Passover celebration.[b]) 4 Then he imprisoned him, placing him under the guard of four squads of four soldiers each. Herod intended to bring Peter out for public trial after the Passover. 5 But while Peter was in prison, the church prayed very earnestly for him.
Peter’s Miraculous Escape from Prison
6 The night before Peter was to be placed on trial, he was asleep, fastened with two chains between two soldiers. Others stood guard at the prison gate. 7 Suddenly, there was a bright light in the cell, and an angel of the Lord stood before Peter. The angel struck him on the side to awaken him and said, “Quick! Get up!” And the chains fell off his wrists. 8 Then the angel told him, “Get dressed and put on your sandals.” And he did. “Now put on your coat and follow me,” the angel ordered.
9 So Peter left the cell, following the angel. But all the time he thought it was a vision. He didn’t realize it was actually happening. 10 They passed the first and second guard posts and came to the iron gate leading to the city, and this opened for them all by itself. So they passed through and started walking down the street, and then the angel suddenly left him.
11 Peter finally came to his senses. “It’s really true!” he said. “The Lord has sent his angel and saved me from Herod and from what the Jewish leaders[c] had planned to do to me!”
12 When he realized this, he went to the home of Mary, the mother of John Mark, where many were gathered for prayer. 13 He knocked at the door in the gate, and a servant girl named Rhoda came to open it. 14 When she recognized Peter’s voice, she was so overjoyed that, instead of opening the door, she ran back inside and told everyone, “Peter is standing at the door!”
15 “You’re out of your mind!” they said. When she insisted, they decided, “It must be his angel.”
16 Meanwhile, Peter continued knocking. When they finally opened the door and saw him, they were amazed. 17 He motioned for them to quiet down and told them how the Lord had led him out of prison. “Tell James and the other brothers what happened,” he said. And then he went to another place.
18 At dawn there was a great commotion among the soldiers about what had happened to Peter. 19 Herod Agrippa ordered a thorough search for him. When he couldn’t be found, Herod interrogated the guards and sentenced them to death. Afterward Herod left Judea to stay in Caesarea for a while.
The Death of Herod Agrippa
20 Now Herod was very angry with the people of Tyre and Sidon. So they sent a delegation to make peace with him because their cities were dependent upon Herod’s country for food. The delegates won the support of Blastus, Herod’s personal assistant, 21 and an appointment with Herod was granted. When the day arrived, Herod put on his royal robes, sat on his throne, and made a speech to them. 22 The people gave him a great ovation, shouting, “It’s the voice of a god, not of a man!”
23 Instantly, an angel of the Lord struck Herod with a sickness, because he accepted the people’s worship instead of giving the glory to God. So he was consumed with worms and died.
24 Meanwhile, the word of God continued to spread, and there were many new believers.
25 When Barnabas and Saul had finished their mission to Jerusalem, they returned,[d] taking John Mark with them.
Footnotes:
12:1 Greek Herod the king. He was the nephew of Herod Antipas and a grandson of Herod the Great.
12:3 Greek the days of unleavened bread.
12:11 Or the Jewish people.
12:25 Or mission, they returned to Jerusalem. Other manuscripts read mission, they returned from Jerusalem; still others read mission, they returned from Jerusalem to Antioch.
Our Daily Bread reading and devotion
Tuesday, December 22, 2015
Read: Luke 21:1-4
The Widow’s Offering
While Jesus was in the Temple, he watched the rich people dropping their gifts in the collection box. 2 Then a poor widow came by and dropped in two small coins.[a]
3 “I tell you the truth,” Jesus said, “this poor widow has given more than all the rest of them. 4 For they have given a tiny part of their surplus, but she, poor as she is, has given everything she has.”
Footnotes:
21:2 Greek two lepta [the smallest of Jewish coins].
INSIGHT:
In both the Old and New Testaments, the Scriptures challenge the people of God to show concern for the marginalized. For example, Deuteronomy 14:29 says: “At the end of every three years, bring all the tithes of that year’s produce and store it in your towns, so that the Levites (who have no allotment or inheritance of their own) and the foreigners, the fatherless and the widows who live in your towns may come and eat and be satisfied.” In the New Testament, the church at Jerusalem established a ministry for the care of widows (Acts 6), and James says the care of widows and orphans is the mark of true religion (James 1:27).
The Drummer Boy
By Bill Crowder
She out of her poverty put in all she had to live on.
Luke 21:4
“The Little Drummer Boy” is a popular Christmas song written in 1941. It was originally known as “Carol of the Drum” and is based on a traditional Czech carol. Although there isn’t any reference to a drummer boy in the Christmas story in Matthew 1–2 and Luke 2, the point of the carol goes straight to the heart of the meaning of worship. The carol describes how a boy is summoned by the Magi to the scene of Christ’s birth. Unlike the wise men, however, the drummer has no gift—so he gives what he has. He plays his drum, saying, “I played my best for Him.”
This echoes the worship Jesus described when He told of the widow and her two coins: “ ‘Truly I tell you,’ he said, ‘this poor widow has put in more than all the others. All these people gave their gifts out of their wealth; but she out of her poverty put in all she had to live on’ ” (Luke 21:3-4).
God is worthy of our all.
All the drummer boy had was his drum and all the poor widow had were her two coins, but the God they worshiped was worthy of their all. He is worthy of our all as well, having given His all for us.
All to Jesus, I surrender, all to Him I freely give; I will ever love and trust Him, in His presence daily live. Judson W. Van De Venter
Your little is a lot when you give your all.
My Utmost for His Highest, by Oswald Chambers
Tuesday, December 22, 2015
The Drawing of the Father
No one can come to Me unless the Father who sent Me draws him… —John 6:44
When God begins to draw me to Himself, the problem of my will comes in immediately. Will I react positively to the truth that God has revealed? Will I come to Him? To discuss or deliberate over spiritual matters when God calls is inappropriate and disrespectful to Him. When God speaks, never discuss it with anyone as if to decide what your response may be (see Galatians 1:15-16). Belief is not the result of an intellectual act, but the result of an act of my will whereby I deliberately commit myself. But will I commit, placing myself completely and absolutely on God, and be willing to act solely on what He says? If I will, I will find that I am grounded on reality as certain as God’s throne.
In preaching the gospel, always focus on the matter of the will. Belief must come from the will to believe. There must be a surrender of the will, not a surrender to a persuasive or powerful argument. I must deliberately step out, placing my faith in God and in His truth. And I must place no confidence in my own works, but only in God. Trusting in my own mental understanding becomes a hindrance to complete trust in God. I must be willing to ignore and leave my feelings behind. I must will to believe. But this can never be accomplished without my forceful, determined effort to separate myself from my old ways of looking at things. I must surrender myself completely to God.
Everyone has been created with the ability to reach out beyond his own grasp. But it is God who draws me, and my relationship to Him in the first place is an inner, personal one, not an intellectual one. I come into the relationship through the miracle of God and through my own will to believe. Then I begin to get an intelligent appreciation and understanding of the wonder of the transformation in my life.
WISDOM FROM OSWALD CHAMBERS
We never enter into the Kingdom of God by having our head questions answered, but only by commitment.
The Highest Good—Thy Great Redemption
A Word with You, by Ron Hutchcraft
Tuesday, December 22, 2015
God's Knockout Punch at Christmas - #7552
Every day the people who broadcast the news to us have to decide what's going to be big news and what's going to be little news. The big news they talk about first. And the little news may not get mentioned at all.
Unfortunately, there are often disasters that occur every day, and they may or may not be big news. Most disasters produce casualties, but casualties are sort of little news. That means people just got hurt. Then there are fatalities. And when there are fatalities, well, sadly, that makes it big news – somebody was killed. The fatality factor seems to propel news to page one. The story of Christmas has a casualty in it, a fatality and a champion.
I'm Ron Hutchcraft and I want to have A Word With You today about "God's Knockout Punch at Christmas."
Now, I know you thought this was about Christmas and it is. But we're suddenly going to be in the Garden of Eden for a minute with our word for today from the Word of God which is in Genesis 3:15. The great tragedy; perhaps the greatest tragedy of history has just taken place as Adam and Eve have chosen to disobey God. Sin has entered a perfect world, and God is already talking about the solution.
He speaks to the serpent, who is the Devil, and says, "I will put enmity between you and the woman and between your offspring and hers. He (that's her offspring) will crush your head and you (that's the serpent) will strike his heel." Did you know that Christmas began in the Garden of Eden? The answer for sin began at the moment sin entered the world. Because God says here there will come a man ultimately descended from Adam and Eve – from the very people who perpetrated sin in the world – a man will come who will crush the serpent.
Notice the verbs here. It says the serpent, Satan, will strike the heel of the Messiah who will come. Satan's going to be able to hurt the Redeemer. That happened at the cross. But it was canceled three days later when Jesus Christ walked out of His grave. But notice what the Redeemer is going to do to the serpent – crush his head. That's the difference between a casualty and a fatality. When the Redeemer comes, Satan will receive a death blow He says.
You need to know that the Devil, for all of his interference in your life right now, is a dead man. Colossians 2:15 says "Christ disarmed the powers and the authorities, and made a public spectacle of them, triumphing over them by the cross." If you're in Christ, if you belong to Jesus, the most the Devil can do is to wound you. You may be a casualty, but thank God you will never be a fatality. Satan tried over and over again to wipe out the Messianic line – the family from which Jesus would come. And then he tried to wipe out all the babies that were the age of baby Jesus. It didn't work. He's beaten!
Why would you ever let the Devil or his people beat you or intimidate you? God has entered human history in person. Everywhere Jesus went the forces of darkness surrendered. Everywhere Jesus goes now through your life, those forces of darkness still surrender.
So, Christmas isn't just a warm and fuzzy little story about a baby in a stable and a star. In the battle for human lives; in the battle you're facing today, Christmas is God's knockout punch.