Looking in the Rearview Mirror!
Well, after all the fuss and preparation, Christmas is over… well sort of. Most of us are enjoying a couple of leisurely days before we return to work. The blessings of the season are now yielding their fruit in terms of peace and a sense of satisfaction at a year well done and closed out well. People have been saved, blessed, anointed and encouraged in our church and ministry. We now have new members poised to join us January 1, and the New Year is ahead with progress promised on our building program. God is good! We may have said goodbye to one season, but we are about to say hello to a new and exciting year!
Anything worth having and doing for God will be opposed by the enemy. Jesus said the enemy comes to kill, steal and destroy, but that he had come to bring abundant and full life (John 10:10). If we are serious about mission and ministry in our church we cannot be discouraged by opposition and difficulty. Instead we must be prepared to fight for ministry, in order to obey and glorify God (cf. Eph. 6:1-18).
Worship Christ the New Born King!
We had and exceptional day at church a week ago! The worship was keenly focused on Christ as the king and the presence of God among his people. Christmas is a time when God chooses unlikely people to accomplish his purposes and plans. Think about it… Mary a humble late-teen as mother of Jesus, Joseph a carpenter, not in the loop until three months after the conception, shepherds in the fields, lowly and outside of the village and town social life. It is amazing that God can do so much by-passing the movers and shakers of our world.
In church, it is the “Joseph’s” laboring under the shadow of the “Mary’s” that get the job done. Joseph saw that Mary got to Bethlehem and that Jesus was born in the City of David, just as the prophecy predicted. It was Joseph that provided a home and living for the family for two years in Bethlehem, before the Wise Men showed up. When it was time for them to flee, Joseph was the one that heard God’s warning, made the plans, packed up the family and made for Egypt. It was Joseph who heard from God to return and then that he needed to go on up to Nazareth. It was Joseph who raised Jesus and taught him a trade, and made sure he had an education.
Christmas is about unlikely people just like us being used by God, and having the opportunity and privilege of worshiping God in his house!
