NOW WHAT

 

Jesus has been born....

Wise men came from the east to worship Him, but it also set in motion the dark heart of Herod the King to find and destroy this so called King of the Jews.

A generation of babies was destroyed because of this darkness.

God warned Joseph to get out of town and take his wife and son to Egypt, and remain there.

Eventually Herod dies, Joseph and family return to the region and life begins to fall into place as the baby grows.

Now we enter into a period of what I refer to as silence. We have very little information as to the young boy's growing up.

We see him at the temple, brought there by his parents to be presented to the priest to fulfill the law of Moses. But there were also two other people who showed up and prophesied over him........Simeon and Anna.

We then find the young boy, age 12, at the temple sitting among the elders asking and answering questions that were far beyond his years. After that the scripture is silent.

SO what does this mean to us here today? Well, we have just celebrated His birth. From this point we push on into the next year, hopefully wiser and more mature in Him as we grow. Growth with Christ chronological, but rather attaining wisdom and insight as we rely on Him more and more in our every day life. I pray that I am wiser than I was at this time last year. I pray that I see the Scripture in a way that I didn't last year. I pray that the prayers I pray have moved beyond being a celestial shopping list of my wants and desires, but rather fall into the simple place of asking, "What would you have me do Lord?"

You see there were approximately 30 years of silence before Jesus steps on the scene as a grown man. And in those 30 years I have often wondered what happened to all those people who we read about at the birth of Jesus.

What about the shepherds? Did they hold on to the faith and truth of what they had been told and seen about the birth of a Savior, or did they fall back into old ways, old thoughts.

The wise men: What happened to them? When they returned home did they spread the news of what they had seen and experienced in their journey to find this baby and worship Him? Or did they go back to their home towns and lived out their days in a quiet and simple life.

The list could go on and on, but the heart of what I am feeling this morning is that the call to follow Christ is not dependent on my circumstances or situations, but rather on the faith and hope that Christ is who He claims He is, and His promises are yes and amen.

So here in 2022, we have celebrated the birth of Christ. Now what will you do as the new year approaches?

God on you....

michael b