December 20: Luke 1:26-38
Key Verse: Luke 1:32
He will be great and will be called the Son of the Most High. The Lord God will give him the throne of his father David
Devotion:
When we get round to reading and studying these verses, I know Christmas is upon us! Each year we go over these verses to remind us of the amazing gift God brought to us through His Son Jesus Christ. We can begin to imagine what Mary, Joseph and their families went through when God told them about their futures; but I don’t think you get to experience the full feeling unless something extraordinary has happened to you...
This is not when I tell you about something special or tell you to wait a decade or two to learn about this special time! This is where I tell you this has happened to you and is happening to you right now. We are joining in on this special journey of faith and love shared with us by God through our history.
People will tell you it couldn’t have happened or it was very different or many other things; it is a personal journey between you and Christ as you learn about His love for you and what He has done just for you. This is not just for Mary and Joseph, not just for the people alive at the time, not just for the Jews or any other people, this is a personal story for you to follow with Christ at the centre.
God can do and does do miracles. We continue to see evidence of what he is doing in our lives as we grow with Him. Inviting His to stay by your side and joining in with His story allows each of us to experience the love He has shown each of us. This Christmas, why not spend some time thinking about all the things God has done just for you.
Points to Ponder:
How much time do you spend with friends and family?
How much time do you spend with God?
December 19: 2 Peter 1:3-11
Key Verse: 2 Peter 1:8
For if you possess these qualities in increasing measure, they will keep you from being ineffective and unproductive in your knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ.
Devotion:
One of the things the disciples learned was very important was to be disciples! Being a disciples is not just about following Jesus and being a good person! Being a disciples is about taking what you learn and learning from it, then taking that and going out to show others what you have learned so they can learn like you have done. Being a disciples is about making disciples by being a disciple...
It may sound strange to say things like this in the beginning because we are answering a question by being the question – or something like that! Jesus taught the disciples through example. He taught them they had to reach out to others and get them to not just learn but to then reach out to others themselves!
Here we learn the basic steps of starting out on the road of being a disciple. We need to be the person Christ has been asking us to be. Only then can we see why He has asked us to be like this. Adding all the attributes of Christ to our daily life means stepping forward and inviting others to do the same – just like Jesus did to the disciples.
When we stop trying to learn more about Christ, we stop growing in Christ and others will see we have given up on something. This will not encourage them to find out more about Christ – instead they will learn by example to stop learning about Christ. This is the circle of discipleship – learning more about Christ to show others how they can learn more about Him...
Points to Ponder:
Do you strive every day to learn more about Christ?
Will you try to learn one new thing about Him today?
December 18: Isaiah 7:10-16
Key Verse: Isaiah 7:14
Therefore the Lord himself will give you a sign: the virgin will conceive and give birth to a son, and will call him Immanuel.
Devotion:
What does it take for you to believe something someone tells you? Do you have to see physical proof? Do you have to read about it on the News? Do you have to hear about it on social media? We all have places or people we believe and trust to hear the truth from, but what happens when the truth sounds unbelievable for some reason?
God continued to tell people they would have the Messiah come to them to be their Saviour at some stage in their lives; they did not know the date or time of this even but the Jews continued to wait for it to happen… When it did happen, they could not bring themselves to believe it because they had grown too used to having to wait – they had made the wait a more important occasion than the actual occasion itself!
God sent multiple messages through multiple prophets to make sure the people all had the chance to hear about the Messiah coming. They were told of the miracle which would happen, that the Lord would come to them by being born of a virgin and they should call Him Immanuel… yet when it happened they did not want to believe it!
We need to take God’s Word and believe it because it is the truth and has continued to be the truth from the beginning. It is the people who have corrupted it and have tried to make it of no effect because they have built things up to be more important than God in their eyes. This is the same thing that were warned about in the beginning too – yet we still do it...
Points to Ponder:
What does it take for you to believe?
Will you simply trust God’s Word?
December 16: Matthew 18:6-9
Key Verse: Matthew 18:7
Woe to the world because of the things that cause people to stumble! Such things must come, but woe to the person through whom they come!
Devotion:
One of the hardest things to accept in life is disappointment or hardship. Nobody wants to endure either of these things and yet we all do face at least one at some stage in our lives. It is no consolation to know that everyone will face one or more problems in their lives which they feel they will not be able to get past or over, but it is the truth. No matter how much we try to steer clear of the bad things in life, they seem to find us.
It is not because we deserve bad things to happen to us for the bad things we have done. It is not that we get punished by God for the evil in our lives. God would rather see us enjoying our lives and living a life which is filled with love and support. One only has to take a look at Job’s life and see how happy God was when things were going well.
What happened to Job? It was the evil one who brought bad things into Jobs life! It was the world around him, and his friends, which caused him heart-ache and even hardship. You see, we all live in this world together and things happen in this world because of our interaction between each other and with good and bad. So many people choose the evil and bad things because they think they will be able to control them and win in some way…
God wants us to see the truth and to be able to live righteous lives with Him at the centre. God wants to be able to reward us for all things in our lives – which means we should stay close to Him so He can reward us. If we are too busy running off in the wrong direction, it gets easier for evil to win through… God is watching every interaction and will make sure the good things get good rewards!
Points to Ponder:
Are you trying to balance good and evil?
Have you noticed how slippery evil is yet?