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December 23: Luke 1:57-66
Key Verse: Luke 1:64
Immediately his mouth was opened and his tongue set free, and he began to speak, praising God.
Devotion:
Remember Elizabeth’s husband, the priest Zechariah, how he was no longer able to speak after the angel of the Lord came and told him about this son who was going to be born even though they were old! Well this was the moment after Zechariah wrote down on a tablet that his son was to be named John!
Just as the angel had said, Zechariah would not be able to speak until everything had come to pass; and that last step was him naming his son John! These are the promises of God – they do come true and they will astound us. This is the hope we have in God, these promises He has made will all come true some day.
We can look back and see how John was born to prepare the way for Jesus. How Jesus followed him about 6 months or so later. How they both learned so much about God. How John started preaching to make sure people were ready. How Jesus came to finish the task and free us from our sin debt… This means we can look forward to the other things God has said will come true!
What is the biggest thing which keeps those doubts running round your head? Will you speak with God through Christ to ask Him to give you faith to continue believing? Will you wait on the Holy Spirit for His guidance and strength so you can have that faith? Just as you may have taken the chance to believe in many things in your past, maybe you can make room for Christ to work in your heart and show you how real He is!
Points to Ponder:
Are you ready?
Will you allow Christ to work in your heart?
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December 22: 1 Samuel 1:24-28
Key Verse: 1 Samuel 1:27
I prayed for this child, and the Lord has granted me what I asked of him.
Devotion:
What has the birth of Samuel got to do with Christmas? Well, it’s not the birth but the actions of his mother we are looking at here. This is the same women who was crying in the temple begging God to give her a son and promising she would bring him to the temple to serve with the priests if God allowed her to become pregnant.
God answered Hannah’s prayers and she delivered on her promise to God. This is what we are looking at today. Elizabeth brought up her son to be the one who would prepare the way for Jesus. Mary brought up her son knowing he was the Messiah, and did her best to make sure he was ready for his ministry. Each of these woman had no issue with submitting to God!
I don’t know about you, but I have asked God to do things for me in the past and said I would do my best to remain loyal to Him. I know He has answered my prayers and I know I have done what I can to remain loyal; but I have fallen short because I was not strong enough at certain times. Samuel remained strong. John remained strong. Jesus was the episteme of strength!
We should be more than willing to stand firm and praise God all the time. We should be more than willing to stand by our bibles and continue to share the gospel. Jesus has done so much for us and because of that we should be more than willing to do more for Him. This Christmas why not try and do something to show people you love God & all of His people!
Points to Ponder:
Do you ask things of God?
Is He asking something of you?
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December 21: Luke 1:39-45
Key Verse: Luke 1:44
As soon as the sound of your greeting reached my ears, the baby in my womb leaped for joy.
Devotion:
As we draw closer to celebrating Christmas, how are you going to mark the memory of the time of our Saviour’s birth? I have done different things over the years from doing absolutely nothing to spending most of the day with other like-minded people enjoying worship and prayers and feasts… but none of this is any good unless we do know this is all about celebrating the birth of our Saviour!
When a pregnant Mary visited Elizabeth, the baby in Elizabeth’s womb kicked with excitement when she heard Mary’s greeting! I can remember watching my wife’s belly as the baby (my son) kicked when I talked to him; the joy that brings you is incredible. Elizabeth must have been very happy to hear the voice of Mary, but the baby was even more thrilled!
What am I getting at here – we really do need to remember Christmas is all about the birth of Christ as well as being with family. Some of us do not have family to go to, or we are separated from family by great distances, but we can still be with them in thought and love. We have the luxury of being able to call people far away using telephones with cameras! Back then you jumped on a mule (if you were lucky) and road for a full day to see someone!
But remember Christ in all of this and give Him thanks for starting this all off in the beginning. He knew we were going to mess things up so He came in person to make sure we could be forgiven by God the Father despite all we have done in our lives!
Points to Ponder:
How are you celebrating Christmas?
Will you stop and thank Christ for being here for you?
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December 20: Isaiah 7:10-14
Key Verse: Isaiah 7:13
Then Isaiah said, ‘Hear now, you house of David! Is it not enough to try the patience of humans? Will you try the patience of my God also?
Devotion:
How full of faith do you think you are? How many times have you asked God to do something? How many times have you continued to ask God to do that same thing? How many times have you given up? How many times have you asked God to show you a sign to prove He is there?
If we are honest then I think we will find the answers to these question can be a little concerning when we look back on our prayer life. When the Lord spoke to Ahaz and told him to ask God for a sign he refused to do so because he did not want to put God to the test – he knew his faith had to be strong enough for him to trust God and not to tempt God into proving Himself!
Often we do ask people to prove themselves before we will trust them – unfortunately this comes from a long history of asking people to do things and them never getting round to doing anything! This is a human trait and not one which God subscribes to! When He says something we can take it as a promise and the truth, no matter what!
Many years before Jesus was born, the prophets foretold of His coming and how He would be born to a virgin and how He would overcome all sin debt on earth. These are now things we can look back on as happening a couple of thousand years ago… but we still have to have faith these facts are real and have faith to continue to rely on Christ because of all He has done for us – even though it is all historical...
Points to Ponder:
How do you describe your faith?
How often do you hide you faith?
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December 19: Luke 1:5-25
Key Verse: Luke 1:7
But they were childless because Elizabeth was not able to conceive, and they were both very old.
Devotion:
One of the things which encourages me most is reading about all the people in our bibles who never gave up hope; yes it is hard to keep on hoping when it seems like the world is falling apart and your life with it… But here, Zechariah and his wife Elizabeth still continued to show everyone that God was the centre of their lives even though they were old and had not had any children.
But far beyond the point where most of us would have given up and retired, the Lord sent an angel to come to Zechariah and tell him of some astonishing news: his prayers were going to be answered and they would finally have a son! The angel gave instructions to Zechariah and, like us, Zechariah had to ask…
So the angel Gabriel told him he would not be able to speak until the day Elizabeth gave birth and he was going to say the name of his son which the angel had told of! So, not only do we have a Zechariah who is utterly human and doubts, but we have an angel who gave specific instructions for him to follow from that moment onward!
God made sure everything went according to the way the angel spoke and both Zechariah and Elizabeth knew it came directly from God; they continued to wait patiently, now filled with even more hope that before!
Points to Ponder:
How soon do you give up waiting for God?
What do you do when God answers your prayers?
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December 18: Matthew 1:18-24
Key Verse: Matthew 1:24
When Joseph woke up, he did what the angel of the Lord had commanded him and took Mary home as his wife.
Devotion:
Sometimes God may ask you to do something which you will not be proud of or something which may make others look down on you… These things can be difficult to take on board when we are not fully trusting in God for everything in our lives. Joseph had no problems with following what God was asking of Him even though it would mean many people may turn their backs on him for taking on a wife who was already pregnant.
God is not going to ask things of us which we cannot do; sometimes they may seem like that, but with Him walking wit us we should be able to do anything! We may not understand fully what God is up to when He asks us to do something, but we can be sure it is the right thing. When God asked me to come back to the village I live in now it was a difficult decision because I had just started to get fully involved with the people where I was living at the time.
Three years on and I am still working toward what God was asking me to do. It has been a struggle and I have met more than my fair share of people who seem to want to disrupt things. I also landed up back in hospital, but I knew God put me here so went with the flow. As it turned out the surgeon looking after me went the extra mile and performed a life saving operation on me.
Trusting God does not always seem like the logical thing to do, but you can rest assured it is the right things to do. He will take care of things when you fully rely on Him!
Points to Ponder:
How far are you willing to trust God?
Will you take that extra step if He asks?
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December 17: John 1:29-23
Key Verse: John 1:23
John replied in the words of Isaiah the prophet, ‘I am the voice of one calling in the wilderness, “Make straight the way for the Lord.”’
Devotion:
As we get closer to Christmas our thoughts continually turn to the live of Jesus and all it means to us. We see all the glitter and decorations and may wonder what it is all about since we should be celebrating the birth of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ! But sometimes we need to go forward and do something which will make people stop and take notice.
Some of us may not feel like it is a festive time of year because we don’t seem to have much to celebrate ourselves, or we may be remembering sad times from previous years; John sets us an example for us to stop and think about and check our own lives to see if we are heading in the right direction.
I know many of the things we see around this time of year are commercial bulldozers or even pagan rights or habits; but let us not forget the reason why this holiday is celebrated all the world round. I know it is not on the actual birth of our Saviour, or at least we don’t think it is, but it is a celebration none the less.
John came forward to “Make straight the way of the Lord.” This means he stepped up and obeyed God to do what he had been asked to do. He set aside his own life and did something out of the ordinary. He was not the Messiah, nor was he Elijah, not even a prophets, just a man who listened to God and did what was asked of him...
Points to Ponder:
How often do you do something someone asks you to do?
How often do you do what God asks of you?
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December 16: Matthew 17:10-13
Key Verse: Matthew 17:12
But I tell you, Elijah has already come, and they did not recognise him, but have done to him everything they wished. In the same way the Son of Man is going to suffer at their hands.’
Devotion:
Some people get very particular about what is going to happen in the end times before Christ’s return. To them I say we should be focusing on what we are acting like before God and not focusing on working out the exact turn of events! Jesus warned the disciples about focusing on the wrong things a few times and this is one of them.
Some were teaching that Elijah would come first. Jesus’ response was to say, yes that is true, but he had already come and nobody noticed! People get too fixated on the physical world around them and on how others should behave; they miss the important happening because they are not taking each day as it comes.
When we expect things to happen in a particular order because we think we read or heard about it, we may well miss out on the real things happening because they are not what we expect to happen. We are so focused on what we expect, we miss the unexpected.
We have been told enough times Christ will return like a thief in the night, not announcing His return to everyone and everything, but coming and going without people realising… because we are focusing on what we expect rather than what is happening!
Points to Ponder:
Are you too caught up in what you expect to happen?
Are you truly listening to what God is saying here and now?
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December 15: Isaiah 48:20-22
Key Verse: Isaiah 48:22
‘There is no peace,’ says the Lord, ‘for the wicked.’
Devotion:
Isaiah was fortunate enough to hear enough from God to make sure he did not get totally disheartened! It must have been very tough to tell the people of Israel about all the bad things which were going to happen with the Babylonians coming to destroy all they had built up. But those times came with a dire warning because the people had all but forgotten about God!
These few verses would give them something to hope for again – but only after they had turned their hearts around and started communing with God once again. God gives us so much, more than we ask for, so how do you think He feels when we turn our backs on Him after He has done so much for us?
God knew the people of Israel would end up coming back to Him, but He also hated the fact they were turning their backs on Him when they should have been praising Him and thanking Him for all they had accumulated. Don’t get me wrong, this was not God punishing them for turning their backs – this was God warning them things would not be comfortable when they turned their backs because the Babylonians wanted everything they had.
This was, in the end, the consequences of their own actions. This last verse says it all… there is no peace for the wicked… If we go down the path of the wicked, we should not expect God’s peace to follow us. Similarly when people work against us with wicked intentions, they should not expect to overcome us but for a little while...
Points to Ponder:
When do you give up hope – when you have it all, or when you have none?
Don’t give up on hope just because you think you don’t need it!
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December 14: Matthew 4:1-11
Key Verse: Matthew 4:11
Then the devil left him, and angels came and attended him.
Devotion:
What do you think about when you read this story about Jesus being tested in the wilderness? Do you think about how evil the devil was to try to tempt Jesus by offering Him things he could not deliver on? Do you think about Jesus being strong enough to resist those temptations? Do you maybe think about how weak we are in comparison to Jesus and how we need help to be able to reject those types of temptation?
Whatever you think of, I would like you to think of something which struck me as I was writing this down… Jesus went through all of these things in the wilderness before the angels came to attend to Him! In other words, despite God having all the power to be able to turn things around, Jesus still had to go through these difficult times before God stepped in to send angels to comfort Him!
Sometimes we face things in our lives and wonder how we can ever get through these things, begging God to take these bad things away from us… but sometimes God knows we have to face something like what is happening before we will understand what it is like for others! I can remember thinking this while I was in hospital and coming to the conclusion God wanted me to know what it was like to be on the receiving end of bad health and unlucky times!
But, no matter what we go through, God will provide respite after the even when we continue to fully trust in Him!
Points to Ponder:
Do you think you are having a bad time?
Is God showing you things before He can reward you?