Advent Reading ~In His Word 12-4-2020
We have reached the fourth day of the last month of 2020! We
are getting closer to Christmas and we are getting closer to a New Year; but
are we any closer to God? Are we any closer to our Lord and Savior Jesus the
Christ? In today’s reading I chose to read Psalm 42 because it reminds me of
how many feel this year…
We long for God to fix things, we hunger for things to
become as they once were but in the same time we know it will never be the
same, we cannot go backwards. So then we begin to get down hearted, or sad,
even depressed, but then God reminds us in His Word that we can rejoice and we
can hope in Him, we can trust Him for He is faithful and just! Even if our
friends and neighbors do not accept that Christ is Lord, and ask us where our
God is in all of this, we can trust that He will bring us into His perfect peace
as long as we keep our minds on Him! (Isaiah 26:3)
As the deer longs for streams of water, so I long for you, O
God. I thirst for God, the living God. When can I go and stand before him? Day
and night, I have only tears for food, while my enemies continually taunt me, saying,
“Where is this God of yours?”
My heart is breaking as I remember how it used to be: I
walked among the crowds of worshipers, leading a great procession to the house of
God, singing for joy and giving thanks amid the sound of a great celebration! Why am I discouraged? Why is my heart so sad?
I will put my hope in God! I will praise him again, my
Savior and my God! Psalm 42:1-6
Let’s make the choice today to put our trust, our hope, and
our faith in God to be the one to follow; then let’s follow where He leads us.
While Mary was carrying baby Jesus, she had to overcome
obstacles. At first Joseph did not believe her, he thought of divorcing her
before they had even gotten married! After the angel spoke with him, he changed
his mind and he too put his faith in following God’s plan. You can imagine the
ribbing the neighbors gave them before they knew the truth as well.
This is how Jesus the Messiah was born. His mother, Mary,
was engaged to be married to Joseph. But before the marriage took place, while
she was still a virgin, she became pregnant through the power of the Holy
Spirit. Joseph, to whom she was engaged, was a righteous man and did not want
to disgrace her publicly, so he decided to break the engagement quietly. As he
considered this, an angel of the Lord appeared to him in a dream. “Joseph, son
of David,” the angel said, “do not be afraid to take Mary as your wife. For the
child within her was conceived by the Holy Spirit. And she will have a son, and you are to name
him Jesus, for he will save his people from their sins.”
All of this occurred to fulfill the Lord’s message through
his prophet: “Look! The virgin will conceive a child! She will give birth to a
son, and they will call him Immanuel, which means ‘God is with us.’” When
Joseph woke up, he did as the angel of the Lord commanded and took Mary as his
wife.
Matthew 1:18-24
It is easy to allow ourselves to be swayed by other people
to believe the worse, but it takes a strong will to stand up for Jesus and do
what is right. To believe what God says in His Word and follow it to the end,
that takes a strong person.
Joseph and Mary grew strong as the awaited the birth of the
Lord, the Christ Child. They trusted completely in God the Father to walk them
through it. I want to be like that; I want to walk through 2020 with Him.