Devotional Song: … GO TO THIS LINK … … Please take the time to take in a YouTube video and lyrics from the group Casting Crowns singing… Somewhere In Your Silent Night … poignantly singing the reality that God came in a manger and died on a cross to be the light in our life and in the dark manger of our heart.
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Highlight Verse[s]: 2nd Corinthians 5:17 [NLT] … 17 This [i.e, being redeemed by Christ’s blood] means that anyone who belongs to Christ has become a new person. The old life is gone; a new life has begun!
… And living in/for Christ means what He is born into our hearts as He was in the manger, bringing life to a dead heart as He did being born to bring light to a darkened world.
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Highlight Passage [context]: 2nd Corinthians 5:11-21 [NLT] … USE THIS LINK …
… Got, thru Paul, writes of the change in the hearts of believers so that we can become His ambassadors, … His witnesses as His disciples.
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Reference Passage : … John 3:5-7 [NLT] … USE THIS LINK …
… Jesus to Nicodemus (and us) that we must be born-again in the Spirit to be raised from spiritual death to eternal life.
Reference Passage : … John 5:24 [NLT] …
24 “I tell you the truth, those who listen to my message and believe in God who sent me have eternal life. They will never be condemned for their sins, but they have already passed from death into life.
… Jesus on what happens in the heart of man when He is born into our hearts, … bringing us from death to life … just as He was born in a manger to bring life to a deadened world.
Reference Passage : … Acts 1:8 [NLT] … 8 But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit comes upon you. And you will be my witnesses, telling people about me everywhere—in Jerusalem, throughout Judea, in Samaria, and to the ends of the earth.”
… Jesus’ promise that His Spirit will indwell the hearts of believers and the will be born-again to become believers.
My Devotional Journal: Today's ODB author, David C McCasland, uses a 17th century poem to illustrate how God changes our hearts when He is born into the manger of our lost souls. The ODB author wrote: Long before Joseph Mohr and Franz Gruber created the familiar carol “Silent Night,” Angelus Silesius had written:
Lo! in the silent night a child to God is born,
And all is brought again that ere was lost or lorn.
Could but thy soul, O man, become a silent night
God would be born in thee and set all things aright.
Silesius, a Polish monk, published the poem in 1657 in The Cherubic Pilgrim. During our church’s annual Christmas Eve service, the choir sang a beautiful rendition of the song titled “Could but Thy Soul Become a Silent Night.”
Note in the poem the connection between Jesus’ birth in a manger, being like the light and life which comes into our hearts when we are born-again in Him. God became a babe in a manger to bring light to a darkened world. And when He is born into our hearts by our faith, His Spirit lights up our silent night so that we can come alive and live for Him rather than trying to live for a deadened self.
The attached picture is what our darkened/dead self must be like before His Spirit brings warmth/light into the silent night in our hearts. We reach out, … faceless, … in the coldness of our selfish spirit, seeking to come alive from His love. And in our faith, He is born into our hearts just as He was into that silent night and manger; and His love brings warmth and life to our cold/dead hearts.
And as Paul wrote in the highlight passage, His rebirth into our hearts, brings the light of His grace and the newness of life so that we can serve Him with our witness (see also Acts 1:8). So, I pray, as the group Casting Crowns sings, that somewhere in the darkness and loneliness of our hearts, we let Christ in to bring light/life to the manger of our souls.
My Prayer Today: Abba Father, … King Jesus, … Precious Spirit … You were born into the manger of my heart to bring me light and life. And may I serve You to spread that light to others. … Amen
Blogger Note: Everyday 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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