December 18: Luke 7:31-35
Key Verse: Luke 7:34
The Son of Man came eating and drinking, and you say, “Here is a glutton and a drunkard, a friend of tax collectors and sinners.”
Devotion:
What do you really think Jesus was like? Did He stand out from the crowd? Well, obviously He did at times when He was surrounded by people trying to get healed or blessed, but what happened early in His ministry? We don’t get to hear about all His days of growing up learning carpentry or what He used to do in His home town at the time...
To me, Jesus would not have stood out from the crowd as we think of it nowadays – but He would have stood out because of the way He acted toward others. Too many times in our lives we do things because it seems like that is what is expected, or we do something because someone else has done it. We copy and emulate others. Jesus did not. He did things because that is what was required! He was purposeful!
In His brief comparison to His life and that of John the Baptist, He shows the meanness of human ways. When we see someone acting differently, we have got to find a cause... we blame them or their lives for what they are doing because it is different to the normal. I like being different. I like to show people they can be different. I don’t stand up and shout about it, but try to be persistent in my ways to bring attention to God and not to me...
People talked badly about John because he lived outside the city and dressed and ate very differently from others. People spoke badly of Jesus because He dared to reach out to the marginalised in society – something we should be proud of doing, not shying away from doing just because it may look odd.
Points to Ponder:
How do you treat people around you?
Are you willing to try to treat all people as equal?
December 17: Luke 7:18-23
Key Verse: Luke 7:22
So he replied to the messengers, ‘Go back and report to John what you have seen and heard: the blind receive sight, the lame walk, those who have leprosy are cleansed, the deaf hear, the dead are raised, and the good news is proclaimed to the poor.
Devotion:
Yesterday we had this passage at the beginning of our estates meeting. What is the first thing you get out of this passage? Is it the importance of John and Jesus getting introduced? Is it the miracles Jesus was performing: healing the sick, releasing people from evil spirits, giving the blind sight, allowing the lame to walk, giving hearing to the deaf, even raising the dead! Or is it the giving of the good news to the poor?
Jesus was doing so many things which were catching the attention of the priests, the scribe and the pharisees. It wasn’t as if He was going out of His way to upset them, but what He was doing was certainly getting their attention. The people were getting used to a hierarchy of religion which was becoming more important than the telling of the gospel. It seemed like people did not want to upset others and keeping to this hierarchical structure helped them to do that!
But, in amongst all the miracles Jesus was listing for the two disciples to go back to John with, was the giving of the good news to the poor. Those people who maybe did not feel worthy to be able to enter the temple. Those people who had been marginalised and missed out of the religious circles. These are the people Jesus was reaching out to because they were the people who needed to hear the gospel most of all!
We have seen people rebelling against hierarchical structures in society lately, what with the Black Lives Matter movement, equal rights and pay structures between sexes and races – we are beginning to see people take notice of the age-old structures in society which were placed there by the privileged few. Let us take the gospel, the good news, and tell it to the people who have been left out of society just because they don’t fit the normal!
Points to Ponder:
Who did you get to hear the gospel from?
Why did they pick you to give the good news to?
December 16: Luke 1:26-38
Key Verse: Luke 1:35
The angel answered, ‘The Holy Spirit will come on you, and the power of the Most High will overshadow you. So the holy one to be born will be called the Son of God.
Devotion:
Here we have a young Mary who is probably just getting used to the idea she is going to be married soon, when the angel Gabriel appears to her and tells her she is going to have a baby! Before she has even been with Joseph! And Joseph is not even going to be the father! Let's start to get that round our heads...
But Mary accepts what Gabriel says and starts to prepare herself for the road ahead. What are the people going to say? What is Joseph going to say? We can’t really begin to wonder what she was getting ready to face – other than she knew God was in it and God was going to take care of her!
Gabriel did not say everything was going to be fine and dandy, he did not say it would be smooth sailing from here on in. He did not say they would be placed in danger as soon as Jesus was born. And I don’t think Mary would have foreseen that either. But she was willing to say ‘yes!’ and to go with whatever God deemed necessary.
Her faith was going to make it all ok in the end – that is what she was clinging to and what we should be focusing on in our lives. We need to have faith God is going to tell us where and when we need to be in order to fulfil His will in our lives. We need to listen to that will and say, “here am I, send me!”
Points to Ponder:
Are you ready to listen to God?
Will you say “here I am, send me” today?
December 15: Luke 1:11-20
Key Verse: Luke 1:17
And he will go on before the Lord, in the spirit and power of Elijah, to turn the hearts of the parents to their children and the disobedient to the wisdom of the righteous – to make ready a people prepared for the Lord.’
Devotion:
You’ve got to feel sorry for Zechariah! Here is a man doing what any one of us would do – questioning someone when they say God is going to do something great in your life! We all have doubts and because we are accustomed to those doubts controlling much of our lives, we give in to them all the time and don’t quite believe things people tell us anymore...
But Gabriel was quite strict on Zechariah because he held a position of great respect in the church at the time. Zechariah had probably given up hope in having a son because both he and Elizabeth were getting on in age (I know the feeling.) God does not give up on us, no matter how long it has been since we asked for His help and no matter how much we grow weary of our prayers being answered.
We must never give up hope in God. We must always trust in His faithfulness and in His power over everything. Jesus came to earth and demonstrated just a little bit of what God can do when we have absolute faith and trust in Him for everything. God wants us to be more like Jesus and have that faith. He wants us to remember all the things which happened because Jesus asked them of God. He wants us to remember and have hope in what He can continue to do in our lives.
Points to Ponder:
How is your hope holding up this year?
Will you give God a bit more time to answer your prayers?