Good morning!
We are officially into Advent…are you preparing your heart as you anticipate our Christmas celebration of our Savior’s birth? How are you preparing?
By now most of you are thinking about the upcoming holiday of Christmas. In our home decorations are up but pruned down as we get older. Odd but in some other ways, this season is coming alive without all the extra trappings - we are not missing what has been left out and put aside.
For me, Christmas and Easter are seasons of pondering, pondering the life of our Savior Jesus Christ – birth, death and resurrection.
Our culture jumps on the gift aspect of the Christmas season, as it feeds our economic engine. The Hallmark Channels and now other channels pump the airwaves with endless Christmas movies trading the birth of Christ for some other mystical goodness. And yes, I watch these movies too – as do most everyone.
This often gives me pause. Stepping back, I believe it is clear that culture misses the most important parts of this season.
--- Which I strongly suggest is tied to understanding the depth and significance of the gift of the Son of God, Jesus Christ becoming man and then His death and resurrection for us.
What is important to you as we enter this season of Advent leading up to the celebration of the birth of our Savior?
I have a thought or word that I treasure as we near Advent. That word or thought for me this advent – humbleness.
Even from the beginning of the New Testament with the arrival of our Savior, humility was a part of the circumstances of that arrival. We think of the manger as a building structure – and it is a structure – but actually a manger is the feeding trough for the animals. If you have spent time on a farm and in the barn you might have seen a feeding trough.
A humble entrance into this world.
And here are some reminders of the specialness of our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ…these are truths about our humble Lord -
For many of us our story isn’t necessarily one so humble. However, for many of us who are reading this, our work, retirement or even personal experiences have led us to meet people who either are living or have lived a humble life.
This time of year reminds me to ask myself “how humbly am I living?”.
In service to others; in pouring myself out for others; allowing God to use my weakness so His glory shines; remembering how Jesus came into this world in the most humble way and then carried that humility through His life to the cross for me – and you – and the rest of the world.
Lord Jesus, my prayer for each of us as we enter this weekend is that as we walk from Christmas to Easter we pause to consider the enormity of those two bookends that encompass Your story of rescue and what you did for us and use that knowledge to live humbly with those around us! Amen!
Have a weekend filled with the Peace that comes from knowing our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ,
Patrick
We are officially into Advent…are you preparing your heart as you anticipate our Christmas celebration of our Savior’s birth? How are you preparing?
By now most of you are thinking about the upcoming holiday of Christmas. In our home decorations are up but pruned down as we get older. Odd but in some other ways, this season is coming alive without all the extra trappings - we are not missing what has been left out and put aside.
For me, Christmas and Easter are seasons of pondering, pondering the life of our Savior Jesus Christ – birth, death and resurrection.
Our culture jumps on the gift aspect of the Christmas season, as it feeds our economic engine. The Hallmark Channels and now other channels pump the airwaves with endless Christmas movies trading the birth of Christ for some other mystical goodness. And yes, I watch these movies too – as do most everyone.
This often gives me pause. Stepping back, I believe it is clear that culture misses the most important parts of this season.
--- Which I strongly suggest is tied to understanding the depth and significance of the gift of the Son of God, Jesus Christ becoming man and then His death and resurrection for us.
What is important to you as we enter this season of Advent leading up to the celebration of the birth of our Savior?
I have a thought or word that I treasure as we near Advent. That word or thought for me this advent – humbleness.
- Luke 2:11–12 “Today in the town of David a Savior has been born to you. He is Christ the Lord. Here is how you will know I am telling you the truth. You will find a baby wrapped in strips of cloth and lying in a manger.”
- Philippians 2:6–8: “Though he was in the form of God, he did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped, but emptied himself, by taking the form of a servant [note here added from a Desiring God article - starting his life lower than servants — in a feeding trough] . . . he humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross.”
- 2 Corinthians 8:9 “For you know the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, that though he was rich, yet for your sake he became poor, so that you by his poverty might become rich.”
- 2 Corinthians 12:9-10 “ But he said to me, “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.” Therefore I will boast all the more gladly about my weaknesses, so that Christ’s power may rest on me. That is why, for Christ’s sake, I delight in weaknesses, in insults, in hardships, in persecutions, in difficulties. For when I am weak, then I am strong.”
Even from the beginning of the New Testament with the arrival of our Savior, humility was a part of the circumstances of that arrival. We think of the manger as a building structure – and it is a structure – but actually a manger is the feeding trough for the animals. If you have spent time on a farm and in the barn you might have seen a feeding trough.
A humble entrance into this world.
And here are some reminders of the specialness of our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ…these are truths about our humble Lord -
- Revelations 5:11-13 “Then I looked, and I heard around the throne and the living creatures and the elders the voice of many angels, numbering myriads of myriads and thousands of thousands, saying with a loud voice, “Worthy is the Lamb who was slain, to receive power and wealth and wisdom and might and honor and glory and blessing!” And I heard every creature in heaven and on earth and under the earth and in the sea, and all that is in them, saying, “To him who sits on the throne and to the Lamb be blessing and honor and glory and might forever and ever!”
- 1 John 4:19 “We love because he first loved us.”
- Romans 5:8 “but God shows his love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us.”
For many of us our story isn’t necessarily one so humble. However, for many of us who are reading this, our work, retirement or even personal experiences have led us to meet people who either are living or have lived a humble life.
This time of year reminds me to ask myself “how humbly am I living?”.
In service to others; in pouring myself out for others; allowing God to use my weakness so His glory shines; remembering how Jesus came into this world in the most humble way and then carried that humility through His life to the cross for me – and you – and the rest of the world.
Lord Jesus, my prayer for each of us as we enter this weekend is that as we walk from Christmas to Easter we pause to consider the enormity of those two bookends that encompass Your story of rescue and what you did for us and use that knowledge to live humbly with those around us! Amen!
Have a weekend filled with the Peace that comes from knowing our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ,
Patrick
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