Advent Day 23: Love
I thought I might do a little something, this year, that would help me focus on what this season is really about, and maybe it could help you, too. I’m going to take the story of Jesus’s birth, found in Luke 2, and go verse by verse, 1 through 24, to see what happens. Here we go… ...(as it is written in the Law of the Lord, “Every firstborn male is to be consecrated to the Lord”) ~ Luke 2:23 NIV Obviously, this verse is in conjunction with yesterday's verse, considering its parenthesis. It's an explanation of why Christ, by law, had to be presented at the temple. It was the law, found in Exodus, that required firstborn sons to be consecrated to God. Consecrated is another word for...
Advent Day 22: Give
I thought I might do a little something, this year, that would help me focus on what this season is really about, and maybe it could help you, too. I’m going to take the story of Jesus’s birth, found in Luke 2, and go verse by verse, 1 through 24, to see what happens. Here we go… When the time came for the purification rites required by the Law of Moses, Joseph and Mary took him to Jerusalem to present him to the Lord... ~ Luke 2:22 NIV Can you imagine how Joseph and Mary must have felt as they were taking Jesus to Jerusalem? This was something every couple with a firstborn son was required by law to do, but this Son...they were taking Him to present Him to His actual, biological...
Advent Day 21: Cross
I thought I might do a little something, this year, that would help me focus on what this season is really about, and maybe it could help you, too. I’m going to take the story of Jesus’s birth, found in Luke 2, and go verse by verse, 1 through 24, to see what happens. Here we go… On the eighth day, when it was time to circumcise the child, he was named Jesus, the name the angel had given him before he was conceived. Every Jewish baby boy had to be circumcised on the eighth day after his birth. Borne of the covenant between God and Abraham, it was a sign that they were members of the covenant people. The act of circumcision, was cutting away that which was unclean, a symbol of the...
Advent Day 20: Truth
I thought I might do a little something, this year, that would help me focus on what this season is really about, and maybe it could help you, too. I’m going to take the story of Jesus’s birth, found in Luke 2, and go verse by verse, 1 through 24, to see what happens. Here we go… The shepherds returned, glorifying and praising God for all the things they had heard and seen, which were just as they had been told. ~ Luke 2:20 NIV Truth. We all want it, and there was a time, I think, when we pretty much took for granted that whatever we were being told was, in fact, true. Now, though, it seems there is an underlying skepticism that causes us to qualify what others tell us. And the...
Advent Day 19: Treasure
I thought I might do a little something, this year, that would help me focus on what this season is really about, and maybe it could help you, too. I’m going to take the story of Jesus’s birth, found in Luke 2, and go verse by verse, 1 through 24, to see what happens. Here we go… But Mary treasured up all these things and pondered them in her heart. ~ Luke 2:19 NIV This has always been one of my favorite verses, and mental images, from the Bible. I envision a very young Mary, made comfortable in fresh straw, with her newborn quietly suckling at her breast. She's tired after the night's events, but that wonderful, satisfied kind of tired, borne of something long-awaited that has...