Tuesday, December 8, 2020

Christmas Devotion

This devotion I wrote appeared in "Power for Living" last Christmas. (The picture is from a Christmas pageant at the boarding school in Nigeria when I was only about five years old.)


 ‘Twas the Night before Christmas

Read: Job 5:8-9, Micah 5:2

“But you, Bethlehem Ephrathah, though you are small among the clans of Judah, out of you will come for me one who will be ruler over Israel, whose origins are from ancient times.” Micah 5:2 (NIV)

‘Twas the night before Christmas and all through the world, the people continued as they always had with no idea of the event—the advent—that would happen the next day. In the streets of Jerusalem, the people did not think they needed a new king. They served Caesar and he was the most powerful man on earth. The people did not think they needed a savior. They obeyed the Roman laws and were not in trouble that they needed saving from, as far as they knew. And the people in Jerusalem and elsewhere could care less what was happening in an obscure little town called Bethlehem.

But what happened in that little town the next day changed the trajectory of history. For in that obscure place, the next day, Jesus, God’s own Son, came into the world as a tiny baby. 

The ancient prophet, Micah knew what a special place Bethlehem was to be in history. He foretold it so many years earlier when he said out of this little obscure town will come one who will be the ruler of the world. We read this in Micah 5:2 which says, “But you, Bethlehem Ephrathah, though you are small among the clans of Judah, out of you will come for me one who will be ruler over Israel, whose origins are from of old, from ancient times." 

Thinking of those people so long ago who completely missed what God was doing in their time, causes me to wonder what we may be missing today. Certainly, we are not missing the birth of Christ but are there other, smaller ways God is working that you and I and the rest of our world are too busy and too preoccupied to notice? According to our focus passage in Job, God performs wonders that cannot be fathomed!

Prayer: Gracious Heavenly Father, open our eyes to see your marvelous works. Open our hearts to be sensitive to your Spirit’s prodding. Open our minds to knowledge through your word. I pray we do not miss the great works you are doing in our world and in our lives. In Your Son’s Name, Amen. 

Thought for the Day: ‘Twas the night before Christmas and all through the world, the people of God were …