Devotional Song: Go to this link – Please take your time to see a video today of my favorite Christmas song … Mark Lowry, singing the poignant and powerful song Mary Did You Know reminding us of the fateful birth of the great I AM in a lowly manger to a teenage mother who barely grasped the reality of he becoming the ark of the New Covenant; … and then GO TO THIS LINK – to hear Steve Green singing, People Need The Lord, … a reminder tha reality that unaware we pass people everyday who need a divine appointment with Jesus.
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Highlight Passage #1 - NKJV: Luke 2: 7 [God wants us to take and hold His high place in battle.]
7 And she brought forth her firstborn Son, and wrapped Him in swaddling cloths, and laid Him in a manger, because there was no room for them in the inn.
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Highlight Context - NKJV: Luke, Chapter 2… GO TO THIS LINK … … [No room in the Inn. ] … ============
Reference Passage #1: Philippians 2: 5-11 [NKJV] … GO TO THIS LINK ... [God’s divine appointment with mankind, humbling Himself to become a man, … a servant, … our Lord.] …
Reference Passage #1: John 3: 16 [NKJV] … [That first Christmas was God’s perfect gift of love to mankind.] …
16 For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have everlasting life.
My Journal for Today: What a scenario!! … A baby born in a manger to a teenager who had traveled on a donkey for two days with her divinely arranged husband to give birth to the great I AM. Wow [!], and the Inn keeper, when he put them out into a stable, really missed a business opportunity, didn’t he? Could you just see the promo ops for the future: “Come stay in the Inn where God’s Son was born!!!”
But God arranged the scene quite differently, didn’t He, … a LOWLY Jewish maiden gives birth to the Son of God, the King of kings, … the Lord of lords, betrothed to a LOWLY Jewish carpenter, who was driven by God-ordained legal circumstances to take his wife to LOWLY Bethlehem, where a LOWLY inn-keeper, was forced to put the couple into a LOWLY cave-manger where God’s Son was born and then announced by God’s angels to LOWLY shepherds. Yes, what a scenario!! It was truly a divinely arranged CHRIST-mass, wasn’t it?
Just to contemplate what God went through to arrange all of this to fulfill all the promises He had made to His chosen people is astounding. Over 300 prophesies and promises made to Israel about the coming King, … the Messiah: … and they were all fulfilled in the birth, life, death, and later resurrection of the babe born that day in a manger. Just the mathematics of all of that is mind boggling, for sure? But in that manger scene, depicted in the attached photo and sung about in the song sung by Mark Lowry today, we are all reminded, … well, at least this humble Christian, of the lengths God went through to bring His Son to us as the Christmas gift of the ages (see John 3: 16).
But on this day, so impacted by human commercialism and cultural biases, do we see that, as Steve Green sings about in the 2nd linked song today, every day we pass by people who need the gift of salvation brought about by the one who God laid in a manger that first Christmas morning? So, today I pray that God helps me see the divine appointments and arrangements He presents to us so that we can share His glorious gift with others as we move into this new year.
My Prayer for Today … Lord, help me share the nativity with any and all who need the saving gift of Your Son. … Amen
Blogger Note: Everyday during this year, my daily devotional blogs are influenced by the reading and study of the online blog entitled Today God Is First [TGIF], authored by Os Hillman. If you GO TO THIS LINK on the date of my blog, you’ll find a link to read Hillman’s TGIF blogs; or you can subscribe to the blog via email at that site.
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