Advent Reading~ In His Word~ December 20, 2020
Joy to the World! The Lord has come that we may have faith and life more abundantly!
But these are written, that ye might believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God; and that believing ye might have life through his name. John 20:31
Do you have faith today? The Wisemen and Shepherds followed
the directions of angels and the star by faith that God had given them this
direction. They trusted God to show them where to go and to bring them to Immanuel.
Back in Isaiah 7 we can find out that the signs and wonders that the king in
that time was asking for was for testing out the Lord God to see if what He
said was true. We do that sometimes, we pray a fleece prayer and put out a if
then type of request. I think this tells us our faith was not strong enough to
believe that God will direct us regardless.
Mary and Joseph did not put out a fleece and say if this
baby is of God then… They accepted that they would be parents to the Son of
God. They had faith in God and gave us a great example of walking in and
through what God gives us to walk through in life.
Unless your faith is firm, I cannot make you stand firm.”
Isaiah 7:9
All right then, the Lord himself will give you the sign.
Look! The virgin will conceive a child! She will give birth to a son and will
call him Immanuel (which means ‘God is with us’). Isaiah 7:12
After the shepherds came the Word of God says that Mary
pondered these things and thought on them. She kept the memory of the whole
ordeal of the angels bringing the shepherds to see her newborn son, and
everything that people said about Jesus as He grew up to remind herself of the
good in Him, or the God in Him, I believe.
Now when they had seen Him, they made [f]widely known the
saying which was told them concerning this Child. And all those who heard it marveled
at those things which were told them by the shepherds. But Mary kept all these
things and pondered them in her heart. Then the shepherds returned, glorifying and
praising God for all the things that they had heard and seen, as it was told them.
Luke 2:18-20
Of course, we do not all get visitations from Angels, but
still we must believe in the Lord Jesus, the Christ, to be saved. We must trust
and have faith in God to walk us through not just 2020 but beyond. We must have
faith that we do not need signs and wonders to find Jesus but to find His
presence within us through the Holy Spirit is enough. When we look to the hills,
when we watch a sunrise or sunset, when we hear a newborn baby coo or gurgle,
and it makes us smile. These are things that can remind us what a good God we
serve and love and are loved by. These are things that can be signs, not that
we need to find one to believe, but that we can ponder these things and know
that God is with us. To remind us of His greatness.
Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the
[b]evidence of things not seen. For by it the elders obtained a good testimony.
By faith we understand that the worlds were framed by the word of God, so that
the things which are seen were not made of things which are visible. Hebrews
11:1-2
Our God has walked with us through this year and by faith we
know He will walk with us through the next. Let us rejoice and celebrate Jesus
today because He came so that we could be free to have faith openly, to know
that we have faith and that we can trust God to be the one to walk with us. Let
us sing songs of worship and joy! Let us sing Joy to the World today for our Lord
has come to earth to bring us into His presence! Let us ponder these things… In
Jesus’ name…