Merry Christmas to you!

Luke 1:30-33 (NKJV)

30 Then the angel said to her, “Do not be afraid, Mary, for you have found favor with God. 31 And behold, you will conceive in your womb and bring forth a Son, and shall call His name Jesus. 32 He will be great, and will be called the Son of the Highest; and the Lord God will give Him the throne of His father David. 33 And He will reign over the house of Jacob forever, and of His kingdom there will be no end.”

This was the announcement to Mary that she would become the mother of Jesus and it was also a proclamation of the fulfillment of a promise made to King David.

Despite our efforts to keep him out, God intrudes. The life of Jesus is bracketed by two impossibilities: a virgin's womb and an empty tomb. Jesus entered our world through a door marked "No Entrance" and left through a door marked "No Exit."   —Peter Larson

Man’s desire to become like God brought sin and death into the world. We tried to push God out of the world He created, but God wasn’t going to let that happen. Instead God had a plan to bring salvation through a baby born to a virgin mother. The baby would grow up living a sin free life to become the perfect sacrifice. Through no fault of His own, Jesus was condemned to death. The life of a criminal, Barabbas, was spared and Jesus died a physical death in place of Barabbas.

Again, it was Man’s choice. The crowd was offered a choice of whether to have Barabbas or Jesus released from Roman custody. The crowd chose Barabbas to be released and Jesus of Nazareth to be crucified. Pilate who made the decision is portrayed as reluctantly yielding to the insistence of the crowd. A passage found only in the Gospel of Matthew has the crowd saying, "Let his blood be upon us and upon our children."

This Christmas and every Christmas is the celebration of the birth of Jesus Christ into our world. It is a reminder that God stepped down from heaven to become man and to live among us. “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.” God continues to call out to us offering His salvation and freedom from sin. Christmas is that special time of year to celebrate God’s gift to us; the gift of salvation through Jesus Christ. Barabbas was set free because of Jesus Christ and we too can be set free from sin because of our faith in Him.

This time of year I take several weeks off from writing my devotions to remember God, Christ, family and friends. Before I close the year, as a friend, I want to wish you a very Merry Christmas. I pray God would bless you this Christmas season with peace and joy. Let us give glory to God in the highest, and on earth show peace and good will towards all people. God bless you, each and every one. – Art

Words helpful for you and others

Proverbs 10:32 (NLT)

32 The lips of the godly speak helpful words, but the mouth of the wicked speaks perverse words.

The righteous person speaks words helpful and beneficiary to others. A good person will bring forth wisdom in the lives of others. The proverb then speaks of the wicked who use perverse words which provoke and bring up controversies.

"He made drinks sparkle, desserts shimmer, and Richard M. Nixon look less shadowy—all with meticulous tricks of lights." So begins an obituary for Imero (or "Immie") Fiorentino, the man who was called "the maestro of lighting" and "The Picasso of lights and strobes."

Because he usually worked quietly behind the scenes, most Americans have never heard of him. But when Fiorentino died at the age of 85 on October 1, 2013, he had served as an adviser to every president from Dwight D. Eisenhower to Bill Clinton. His work had illuminated some of the biggest entertainers of his day, including Frank Sinatra, Bill Cosby, Neil Diamond, Barbara Streisand, and Muhammad Ali. He orchestrated the lighting behind everything from Walt Disney's Epcot Center to TV commercials for Jell-O and ginger ale.

But if it wasn't for the encouraging words from one of his high school teachers, Mr. Fiorentino's career may have ended before it started. The New York Times records what happened:

Several months before graduating from high school, he found what he thought was an empty shell casing in the street. Wanting to make it into a key chain, he took a soldering iron to it. It was a live round. Shrapnel from the explosion pierced his right eye, blinding it. He despaired of being able to work in lighting. Then one of his teachers, visiting him in the hospital, told him, "You're going to be the best one-eyed lighting designer ever." "I can do that," Immie replied.

Due to those words of encouragement, Mr. Fiorentino went on to earn a bachelor's degree in theater from Carnegie Tech in 1950. On graduating, he was hired to teach theatrical lighting at Indiana University, and from there his career took off. [Adapted from Margalit Fox, "Imero Fiorentino, Lighting Designer Who Mastered Television, Dies at 85,' The New York Times (10-13-13)]

The right word, said at the right time will often bring life to a person and give them hope they had lost. Today let me encourage each of you that God has a purpose for your life. There is something important for you to do that will benefit others and give joy to your own life. Don’t give up on life, but embrace life and let the love of God fill your hearts. Allow God’s wisdom to speak to you that you may speak wisdom to others. All of you are precious, all of you are loved, and all of you have gifts of life that can be shared with others. May God bless you, keep you safe and guide your life in a positive way.

Doubt and Faith

1 Corinthians 13:12 (NLT)

12 Now we see things imperfectly, like puzzling reflections in a mirror, but then we will see everything with perfect clarity. All that I know now is partial and incomplete, but then I will know everything completely, just as God now knows me completely.

We live in an imperfect world and. The imperfect world clouds our mind with things that confuse and puzzle us. Like trying to perform actions in a mirror we often move opposite to what is correct. We are limited to the range of view of the mirror and to the size of the reflection. But one day things will come into full and complete view that we may fully know God and the things that were in this world.

As long as you have faith, you will have doubts. I sometimes use the following illustration when I'm speaking. I tell the audience that I have a twenty-dollar bill in my hand and ask for a volunteer who believes me. Usually only a few hands go up. Then I tell the volunteer that I am about to destroy his (or her) faith. I open my hand and show the twenty-dollar bill. The reason I can say I am destroying his faith is that now he knows I hold the bill. He sees the bill and doesn't need faith anymore. Faith is required only when we have doubts, when we do not know for sure. When knowledge comes, faith is no more.

Sometimes a person is tempted to think, I can't become a Christian because I still have doubts. I'm still not sure. But as long as doubts exist, as long as the person is still uncertain, that is the only time faith is needed. When the doubts are gone, the person doesn't need faith anymore. Knowledge has come.

I tell the audience that this is exactly the point Paul was making in his first letter to the church at Corinth: "Now we see [that a 'knowing' word] but a poor reflection [now we have confusion, misunderstanding, doubts, and questions] … then we shall see face to face [we don't see face-to-face yet]. Now I know in part [with questions and doubts]; then I shall know fully, even as I am fully known" (13:12). [John Ortberg, Faith & Doubt (Zondervan, 2008), pp. 139-140]

Faith comes with doubts. Just because we have doubts does not mean we don’t have faith. However, it does mean we are looking at an imperfect world we cannot trust. We do not know if what we are seeing is a complete and whole picture. When truth is revealed to us our doubt is removed and our faith is no longer required. We become complete, just as God knows us completely.

Ambassador, Mediator, King

John 14:6 (NLT)

6 Jesus told him, “I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one can come to the Father except through me.

Here Christ tells gives us the statement of His purpose, He is the way to eternal life, He provides the truth about God the Father and He is the life we should follow. Fallen man must come to God as a Judge, but cannot come to him as a Father, otherwise than by Christ as Mediator.

Someone once asked the question, “Are you more aware of other’s sins than your own?” I’m afraid sadly there would be many of us who would say – Yes. It becomes easy for us to see the sins of others, but we fail to see our own faults, our own prejudices and our sin that God so despises.

Amazingly God’s heart is gracious towards us. For God gave His only Son, Jesus Christ to become a sacrifice for our sin. Although we deserved God’s wrath, because of God’s love, mercy and grace towards us he appointed Jesus Christ as King of Kings, Ambassador, a Divine Mediator between man and God.

In stories about Sparta, we find there were more than one king at Sparta, who governed by joint authority. A king was occasionally sent to a neighboring state as a Spartan ambassador. Did this king cease to be a king of Sparta, because he was also an ambassador? No, he did not divest himself of his royal dignity, but only added to it that of public deputation. So Christ, in becoming man, did not cease to be God; but He still continued to be King of the whole creation and served as the voluntary Servant and Messenger of the Father.

Don't become a captive!

Proverbs 5:22 (NLT)

22 An evil man is held captive by his own sins; they are ropes that catch and hold him.

We can see that a person becomes held prisoner by their own sins. For like ropes to hold and bind, sin holds a person by the consequences of their actions. They are slaves to sin; a prisoner to their own desires.

Mr. Holland's Opus is a movie about a young, frustrated composer in Portland, Oregon, who takes a job as a high school band teacher in the 1960s in order to provide for his family. Diverted from his lifelong goal of achieving critical fame as a classical musician, Glenn Holland (played by Richard Dreyfuss) believes his school job is only temporary. At first he maintains his determination to write an opus, composing at his piano after putting in a full day teaching. But, as family demands increase and job pressures multiply, Mr. Holland recognizes that his dream of leaving a lasting musical legacy is merely a dream.

Throughout the movie, Mr. Holland's relationship with his wife is in throes, due in part to raising a deaf son. While directing the school musical, the middle-aged teacher is intrigued by the musical skill and physical beauty of a senior named Rowena. As he affirms her abilities, Rowena becomes attracted to him. She tells her teacher that she has decided to move to New York City in pursuit of her own dreams, but she wants him to go with her. Rowena tempts him with the chance to escape the constraints of his current life and finally be able to write music. After the final performance of the musical, Mr. Holland meets her at the local drug store where the bus picks up passengers. Her eyes light up as she sees him approach, but then notices that he has no luggage.

"You pack light," she jests.

Mr. Holland doesn't acknowledge her attempt at humor, but hands her a slip of paper with the name of a couple he knows in New York where she can stay.

"This isn't the way I imagined it," Rowena reluctantly admits.

"But it's the best way," Mr. Holland says, finding the inner strength to resist temptation.

That evening, Mr. Holland walks into his bedroom where his wife appears to be sleeping. He looks tenderly at her and says, "I love you." His wife looks up at him and responds, "I know." Aware of the victory he has won by honoring his wedding vows, he takes his wife in his arms and holds her.

[Mr. Holland's Opus, (Hollywood Pictures, 1995), rated PG, written by Patrick Sheane Duncan, directed by Stephen Herek; submitted by Greg Asimakoupoulos, Naperville, Illinois]

James 4:7 tells us, “So humble yourselves before God. Resist the devil, and he will flee from you.” When we are humble are desire to sin diminishes.

Jesus is the light of the world!

John 8:12 (ESV)

12 Again Jesus spoke to them, saying, “I am the light of the world. Whoever follows me will not walk in darkness, but will have the light of life.”

There is a sun that illuminates the world and takes away the darkness. There is also the Son of God that illuminates the lives of people and takes away the darkness they walk in. The visible light of the world is the sun, and Christ is the Sun of righteousness.

I am the light of the world, the founder of the Christian religion said. What a stupendous phrase! And how particularly marvelous today, when one is conscious of so much darkness in the world! Let your light shine before men, he exhorted us. You know, sometimes ... someone asks me what I most want, what I should most like to do in the little that remains of my life, and I always nowadays truthfully answer--and it is truthful--"I should like my light to shine, even if only very fitfully, like a match struck in a dark, cavernous night and then flickering out." [Malcolm Muggeridge in Jesus Rediscovered. Christianity Today, Vol. 41, no. 11]

Many of us become so wrapped up in our own issues, problems and daily routine that we forget there are those wandering lost in a dark world. There are many who do not know the love, mercy, and grace of God. They don’t understand the concept of salvation that brings them eternal life with God in heaven.

Jesus Christ said He is the light of the world. Jesus Christ came to reconcile man with God by providing light on the word of God that man could clearly see. 

Know Jesus and never thirst again

John 6:35 (ESV)

35 Jesus said to them, I am the bread of life; whoever comes to me shall not hunger, and whoever believes in me shall never thirst.

To believe in Christ is to come to Christ. For it is not just knowledge of Christ that saves, but a firm belief that eternal life through Christ can be found.

The town of East Porterville may be the hardest-hit place in California's punishing drought. Of its 7,300 people, almost 1,000 have no running water. Groundwater levels have plunged by 60 feet or more in some spots, and tens of thousands of wells are in danger. But few knew that until 72-year-old Donna Johnson started driving around town and asking neighbors, "Hi. Do you have water?" Again and again, the answer was no.

When Johnson's well ran dry in June, she and her husband had no idea they were part of something bigger. "I guess I was just oblivious to how bad it had gotten," she said. But that changed when she started stopping to listen. At the local gas station, for instance, she tuned into conversations and kept hearing, "So-and-so's well ran dry."

In July, Johnson decided to put together a list of people out of water in East Porterville. The local paper ran an article that gave her phone number and address and said she was collecting bottled water for drought victims. The next day there were pallets of plastic bottles under her tarp carport. Johnson recruited a neighbor to make the deliveries. The calls from people needing water came as quickly as the donated bottles.

Families would call at midnight and say "We're completely out of water" and she'd go and take some. When she drove up to one local driveway she asked her typical question: "Hi, do you have water?" "A little," a woman named Veronica said. "But if two people take a shower, it's done." Eight people live in the small, water-deprived home. After the Johnson dropped off the water they told her, "Thank you for the water. We didn't know where to go. We're grateful." [Adapted from Diana Marcum, "'Hi, do you have water?' In a Central Calif. town, answer is often no." LA Times (9-18-14)]

There are those who thirst for a happy eternal life spent with God in heaven. Many of us walk around each day not realizing there are those in our community who thirst for eternal salvation. We have come to think everyone should know the source, but as seen above some people didn’t know where to get their thirst satisfied for something as basic as water. Take time and share the Good News of Jesus Christ with others and help them learn about God’s gift of eternal salvation.

The Son has spoken

Hebrews 1:1-2 (ESV)

1 Long ago, at many times and in many ways, God spoke to our fathers by the prophets, 2 but in these last days he has spoken to us by his Son, whom he appointed the heir of all things, through whom also he created the world.

Here the apostle begins with a general declaration of the excellency of the gospel dispensation above that of the law, which he demonstrates from the different way and manner of God's communicating himself and his mind and will to men in the one and in the other: both these dispensations were of God, and both of them very good, but there is a great difference in the way of their coming from God. [Matthew Henry Commentary]

 Thomas Brooks was an English Puritan preacher and author in the 1600s. Though he's best known for his many books and theological treatises, we have several of his sermons in print, some of which are funeral sermons. In one funeral sermon, Brooks reminds his listeners that for the believer, death not only ceases to be our conqueror; death actually becomes God's meek helper. He wrote: "Death is another Moses: it delivers believers out of bondage, and from making bricks in Egypt." He continued:

Remember this—death does that in a moment, which no graces, no duties, nor any ordinances could do for a man all his lifetime! Death frees a [person] from those diseases, corruptions, temptations … that no duties, nor graces, nor ordinances could do …. Every prayer then [when we die] shall have its answer; all hungering and thirsting shall be filled and satisfied; every sigh, groan, and tear that has fallen from the saints' eyes shall then be recompensed. That is not death but life, which joins the dying man to Christ!

There is an importance to understanding The Gospel or Good News of Jesus Christ. For the Gospel gives us Good News of an eternal life; a life lived free from the problems of the world. This freedom came through Jesus Christ, God’s son, who was appointed heir of all things.God’s Son has spoken and has told us how to have victory over death and live eternal life in heaven.

Do you know Christ?

John 1:1-2, 14 NLT

In the beginning the Word already existed. The Word was with God, and the Word was God. He existed in the beginning with God. So the Word became human and made his home among us. He was full of unfailing love and faithfulness. And we have seen his glory, the glory of the Father’s one and only Son.

These verses remind us that Christ was fully God and existed with God before living among us as a man. Christ’s love for us was unfailing. He gave His life that we could be free from sin.

Joshua Bell emerged from the Metro and positioned himself against a wall beside a trash basket. By most measures, he was nondescript—a youngish white man in jeans, a long-sleeved T-shirt, and a Washington Nationals baseball cap. From a small case, he removed a violin. Placing the open case at his feet, he shrewdly threw in a few dollars and pocket change as seed money and began to play.

For the next 45 minutes, in the D.C. Metro on January 12, 2007, Bell played Mozart and Schubert as over 1,000 people streamed by, most hardly taking notice. If they had paid attention, they might have recognized the young man for the world-renowned violinist he is. They also might have noted the violin he played—a rare Stradivarius worth over $3 million. It was all part of a project arranged by The Washington Post—"an experiment in context, perception, and priorities—as well as an unblinking assessment of public taste. In a banal setting, at an inconvenient time, would beauty transcend?"

Just three days earlier, Joshua Bell sold out Boston Symphony Hall, with ordinary seats going for $100. In the subway, Bell garnered about $32 from the 27 people who stopped long enough to give a donation. [Gene Weingarten, "Pearls Before Breakfast," The Washington Post (4-10-07); submitted by Stephen Nordbye, Charlton, Massachusetts]

Christ appeared to the world for all to know The Good News of salvation. However, there are many people who still do not recognize Christ for who He is. Christ died to save us from the sins of the world. Share the news with those who do not know Christ. Pray for those who do not know Christ. Most of all praise Christ for the wonderful works He has done. May those who don’t know Christ come to know Him.