Tag: Jesus Christ

A Child Will Lead Them

Eighteenth Day of Advent

Isaiah 11:1-10 (NIV 2011)
A shoot will come up from the stump of Jesse; from his roots a Branch will bear fruit. The Spirit of the LORD will rest on him – the Spirit of wisdom and of understanding, the Spirit of counsel and of might, the Spirit of the knowledge and fear of the LORD – and he will delight in the fear of the LORD.
He will not judge by what he sees with his eyes, or decide by what he hears with his ears; but with righteousness he will judge the needy, with justice he will give decisions for the poor of the earth. He will strike the earth with the rod of his mouth; with the breath of his lips he will slay the wicked. Righteousness will be his belt and faithfulness the sash around his waist.
The wolf will live with the lamb, the leopard will lie down with the goat, the calf and the lion and the yearling together; and the little child will lead them. The cow will feed with the bear, their young will lie down together, and the lion will eat straw like the ox. The infant will play near the cobra’s den, the young child will put its hand into the viper’s nest. They will neither harm nor destroy on all my holy mountain, for the earth will be filled with the knowledge of the LORD as the waters cover the sea.
In that day the Root of Jesse will stand as a banner over the peoples; the nations will rally to him, and his resting place will be glorious. In that day the Lord will reach out his hand a second time to reclaim the surviving remnant of his people from Assyria, from Lower Egypt, from Upper Egypt, from Cush, from Elam, from Babylonia, from Hamath and from the islands of the Mediterranean.

Financial problems, chronic pain, emotional hurt – these struggles seem to intensify as Christmas approaches. We wonder if God’s promises of peace and joy are out of our grasp. However, God has a plan bigger than we can imagine. These are days to look at our lives through the lens of our eternal tomorrows. Judah’s problems made God’s promise of a Messiah seem impossible. Life for God’s people in Judah held destruction, pain and hardship. Had God forsaken them? No, God had a plan bigger than they could imagine. The promise of a Messiah from the family line of David, son of Jesse was good because God is faithful to His word. As a tree stump grows shoots of new life after a fire so new life would come from God’s people. The Messiah, Jesus Christ would bless the people with the peace of God and transform their lives.

The Messiah’s peaceful rule will one day transform the earth. A day is coming when the wolf, leopard and lion will no longer hunt the lamb, goat and calf. A small child will be safe with wild animals and snakes. What God has promised, He will do. Looking to the future we have every reason not to fear, every reason to be peaceful, joyful people. He is able to transform your anguish into peace. This Christmas will you begin to look at your days through the lens of all your glorious eternal tomorrows?

Barbara Reaoch

Re: Verse reading – John 6:25-51

Ecstatic Joy

Fifteenth Day of Advent

Psalm 89:1-4 (Message)

1-4 Your love, God, is my song, and I’ll sing it!
I’m forever telling everyone how faithful you are.
I’ll never quit telling the story of your love—
how you built the cosmos
and guaranteed everything in it.
Your love has always been our lives’ foundation,
your fidelity has been the roof over our world.
You once said, “I joined forces with my chosen leader,
I pledged my word to my servant, David, saying,
‘Everyone descending from you is guaranteed life;
I’ll make your rule as solid and lasting as rock.’”

“I have made a covenant with my chosen one…” Psalm 89:3

“Jesus Christ is the object of everything, and the center to which everything tends. Whoever knows him knows the reason for everything.” –Blaise Pascal

“I’ll rise and fall with you, ’cause you can’t fail me now.” –Joe Henry

There are and will come again times in our lives when we’re stricken with a suffering that we can’t surmount. These trials don’t exist in vacuums: they always pull back the curtain to reveal our ever-present and profound dissatisfaction with the world and ourselves. The psalmists are certainly no strangers to this, and they groan under their imperfections while waiting for God to fulfill His climactic promise to their people. Yet, in the midst of their agonized waiting, they also can ecstatically rejoice in the love of God. As Psalm 89 shows us, this is because they cling to the words of God’s promise, Whom He will reveal as Jesus, His divine Word made flesh. Christ, through His own sorrows, transfigures the psalmist’s earthly pain into heavenly joy, and He does exactly the same for us. By inviting us into his life, Christ also invites us into His suffering so that He can freely lead us into His happiness. Right now He is waiting to transform our tears into glories. Let us wait in faith and love with Him, so that we might fully know Him.

Garner Richardson

Re: Verse reading – John 3:1-21

Wake

Re: Verse reading–Ephesians 4:17-5:20 (day three)
“Wake up, sleeper.”  Sleep is good for a body.  But we also use sleep and dreaming as a metaphor for a state of unpreparedness or oblivion: “asleep at the wheel”; “snooze you lose”; “pipe dreams”.  We can’t carry the weight of the world, so we try to sleep it off.  We can’t accomplish our deepest longings, so we just dream about them.  We cannot know what is real, what is true, what is a treasure, what matters, what lasts, what lives, until we wake up.  And we will not wake up until we pay attention to Jesus Christ as the one and only person who can teach us how to live his kind of life.

The Gift of God

Re: Verse reading–Ephesians 2:1-10 (day one)
“For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith–and this not from yourselves, it the gift of God.”  (v 8)  44 years ago, I sat in a living room of an home in Amarillo, Texas.  I had been invited by a friend to attend a Bible study for High School students.  I had no expectations of a spiritual encounter.  I was not conscious of any preparation in my heart for the new birth that I was about to experience.  As I listened that night, a young man spoke of a “personal relationship with Jesus Christ” and I felt convicted of my need for a savior.  By faith, that night, I prayed for Christ to come into my heart.  Over the next weeks and years, I experienced new power operating in my life, the very presence of Christ.  I was “made alive”.  He forgve my sin. He gave me a gift, unearned and impossible to repay.

If you confess with your mouth

Re: Verse reading–Romans 10:8-15; 1 Corinthians 15:1-8 (day six)
“If you confess with your mouth Jesus Christ as Lord. . . you shall be saved.”  (Romans 10:9)  Confess is an interesting word.  In English it sounds guilty, “he confessed to a crime”.  In Greek it simply means “to speak the same word”, “to stand in unity on a matter of truth”.  With whom do we stand when we confess that Jesus is Lord?  We stand with God and watching universe!  ” He (God) has made Him (Jesus) both LORD and Christ.”–Acts 2:36.  “All authority (Lordship) has been give to me” said Jesus in Matthew 28.  Being original is not the point!  Solidarity is!  When we confess that Jesus is LORD (of the universe and of our lives) we are joining a mighty army of truth-telling people (saints and angels together).  All history moves toward this great climax.  “And every knee shall bow and will confess that Jesus Christ is LORD.”—Philippians 2:11.  Better for us to join this wave now!

Invitation

Re: Verse reading – Romans 10:8-15; 1 Corinthians 15:1-8 (day three)
“Everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved.”  It’s not uncommon for some to claim that Christianity is exclusivist, whereas other religions or systems of thought possess much more generosity of spirit and remain open to anyone.  The hallmark of God’s revelation in Christ, though, is not exclusivity, but radical inclusivity: “Come, all that are heavy laden, and I will give you rest.”  While the world measures every man by this or that standard to determine his worth, Jesus Christ says that whosoever will may come.  Invitations don’t get more inclusive than that.

Waking

Re: Verse reading – Psalm 24:1-6; Ephesians 5:1-16 (day three)
“Wake up, sleeper.”  As a sleeping person knows life only in a dream instead of as it actually is, so a person untaught by Jesus Christ knows only fleeting images of good and love and beauty, and not those things as they actually are.  Consider the words of C.S. Lewis: “Indeed, if we consider the unblushing promises of reward and the staggering nature of the rewards promised in the Gospels, it would seem that our Lord finds our desires, not too strong, but too weak. We are half-hearted creatures, fooling about with drink and sex and ambition when infinite joy is offered us, like an ignorant child who wants to go on making mud pies in a slum because he cannot imagine what is meant by the offer of a holiday at the sea. We are far too easily pleased.”

Pray

Re: Verse reading – Luke 11:1-13; 18:1-8 (Day Three)
“Lord, teach us to pray.”  It’s not uncommon for evangelicals to think that the best kind of prayer consists of spontaneous, off-the-cuff, stream-of-consciousness language.  While speaking to God in a moment of unstructured outpouring is often a good and necessary practice for a Christian, this passage helps us to see that a studied, carefully planned approach to prayer can also help.  A person would do well to contemplate and to pray the Lord’s Prayer, the Psalms, the composed prayers of devout disciples of Jesus Christ through the centuries of Christianity.  As for the concern about reciting “rote prayers”, two observations: First, rote learning is actually a good way to become accustomed to ways of speaking (including prayer); and second, any prayer—spontaneous or not—will be as sincere or as distracted as the person praying it.

Wise for salvation, equipped for service

RE Verse reading–Psalm 119:9-16; Acts 17:10-12; 2 Timothy 3:14-17 (day seven) 
“From infancy you have know the holy Scriptures which are able to make you wise for salvation through faith in Jesus Christ. . .that the man of God may be thoroughly equipped for every good work.”  (2 Timothy 3:15, 17)  We are caught in a philosophical conflict.  The world against the Spirit.  Hugely important!  Is there a God?  Is He NECESSARY for life?  Most of us tend toward philosophical humanism.  The bias of the present age.  Consequently, we believe that we are capable of making good decisions and free to do so (even when we fail) without fear of being criticized because we were “true to ourselves.”  The scripture denies such SELFishness.  It declares that a “word” from God is necessary.  His word and wisdom, external to us and higher than us, is something we desperately need.  Ego-shattering!  Life-giving!  Only through Holy Scripture can we have wisdom for salvation and equipment for God-planned good works.

A Promise Kept

Re: Verse reading–Jeremiah 31:27-34; 32:1-15 (day five)

Jeremiah 31 31 “Behold, days are coming,” declares the LORD, “when I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and with the house of Judah, 33  “I will put My law within them and on their heart I will write it; and I will be their God, and they shall be My people.

Luke 22:20 “This cup is the new covenant in my blood, which is poured out for you.

John 14 15 “If you love me, keep my commands. 16 And I will ask the Father, and he will give you another advocate to help you and be with you forever— 17 the Spirit of truth. The world cannot accept him, because it neither sees him nor knows him. But you know him, for he lives with you and will be in you.

Colossians 1  27 To them God has chosen to make known among the Gentiles the glorious riches of this mystery, which is Christ in you, the hope of glory.

Now may the God of peace, who through the blood of the eternal covenant brought back from the dead our Lord Jesus, that great Shepherd of the sheep, equip you with everything good for doing his will, and may he work in us what is pleasing to him, through Jesus Christ, to whom be glory for ever and ever. Amen.