Devotional Song: Go to this link … Please take the time to take in a happy Christmas song, sung by Johnny Mathis, It’s Beginning To Look A Lot Like Christmas, … reminding us all that we tend to commercialize the Advent season, which celebrates the coming of King Jesus in a manger.
Highlight Passage #1 - NKJV Luke 19: 39-40 … God’s call for togetherness in His Church …
39 And some of the Pharisees called to Him from the crowd, “Teacher, rebuke Your disciples.” 40 But He answered and said to them, “I tell you that if these should keep silent, the stones would immediately cry out.”
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Highlight Context – Luke 19: 28-40 [NKJV] … USE THIS LINK … Jesus’ triumphant entry to the City of David
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Reference Passage #1 - NKJV Zechariah 9: 9 … The prophesy fulfilled by the triumphal entry of Jesus into Jerusalem in Luke 19 [see above].
9 “Rejoice greatly, O daughter of Zion! Shout, O daughter of Jerusalem! Behold, your King is coming to you; He is just and having salvation, lowly and riding on a donkey, a colt, the foal of a donkey. … “
Reference Passage #2 – Philippians 2: 6-11 [NKJV] … USE THIS LINK … Jesus set aside His glory to be among His children, which – to me – is the essence of Christmas.
My Journal for Today: Today’s Our Daily Bread devotional entry, authored by Julie Ackerman Link, refers to the trend of our world, commercializing the glorious coming of our Lord during the Advent season with promotions and advertisements which try to use the joy of Christ to sell, sell, sell. All one has to do is go to shopping mall the day after Thanksgiving (in the US – see attached photo) to see all the declarations which shout out … ”It’s Christmas time !!!”
Well, … this time of the year reminded the ODB author, Julie Link, of the declaration of Jesus Himself in Luke 19: 40 (which was an allusion to the prophesy of Zechariah 9: 9) that “the stones would cry out” of the coming of Jesus if the people could not shout their worship of the Messiah. And I agree with ODB author, Link, that when you hear Christmas carols being played in the malls, … as well as lost people, just as dead as stones, singing traditional carols, proclaiming the coming of the Christ child, even if the singers don’t really know Him as their Savior, … one can feel and see the joy of our Lord being shouted out in the midst of all the commercialism.
So, when we hit the malls in this Advent Season, take in the joy of reality as the “stones” shout out of the coming of our Lord!!!
My Prayer for Today … Lord, Jesus, … It’s You we sing about as the world shouts out of Your coming. Amen
Blogger Note: Every day during this year, my daily devotional blogs are influenced by the reading and study of the online devotional blog entitled Our Daily Bread, distributed online via email by RBC Ministries. If you GO TO THIS LINK on the date of my blog, you can read/study the ODB blogs; or you can subscribe to the blog via email at that site.
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