December 21 Advent

I want to pause in our story for an important reason. People back then were able to hear from God, but we too often leave this sort of thing for bible times. We instead say that God simply speaks to us through the Word, through nature, and worship, etc... It is true, God DOES speak to us through these things! But God also speaks to us audibly. He wants to speak to ALL of us, only we don't know how to listen just yet... Lets take a lesson from Zechariah, from Elizabeth, Mary, Joseph, the wise men and shepherds, and lets learn how to open our ears and hearts to HEAR from God, a new message that he has spoken just for us.

I am feeling solemn this morning...perhaps it is because I woke up an extra hour earlier, but perhaps it is God. Sometimes these things happen because God is trying to tell me something... At this point, I don't know what that message is, but I will need to be consciously aware and alert today to hear his voice, so that I can act on what he is trying to tell me. I have learned my own body signals to an encounter with God. I know the changes in my mental focus, mood, and train of thinking. Right now it’s all hovering in the spiritual category for me. This is an important part of self-awareness I have learned along my own journey of hearing God’s voice. Let me share a bit of my testimony with you guys today, to show you what it looked like for me to learn how to hear the voice of Christ in my life.

I was blessed to be a part of a study in high school called “the hardest 30 days of your life” which lead up to a spiritual retreat. The first several days teach you how to pray the “parts” prayer. Praise, Admit, Request, Thanks, Shut up. You can read more about this prayer here, if you are interested. http://the30hardestdaysofmylife.blogspot.ca/2010/01/day-8-prayer.html and buy it here http://www.lookadoo.com/Shop.htm (I already checked Amazon for you, brand new, this is your best bet). Yes this is a plug, but not prompted by anything except my memories, and the holy spirit.

Anyway, the part that was the hardest for me was the “shut up” and it means exactly what you would think it does. Shut up and listen to God, for once in your life, and every day here after! It was kind of rude to me at first (especially since my parents considered “shut up” a swear word for us in elementary), but it grew on me as I began to practice it. The truth is, the first several weeks (because this is 30 WEEKDAYS not 30 consecutive days) I heard nothing. I would be silent, quiet my mind and try to hear from God, for probably 5-10 minutes, constantly catching my thoughts come back, and shoving them out again (men, this is actually an almost IMPOSSIBLE task for women, to think about nothing for a period of time... unless we are dead of course). So for me it took a lot of practice to just learn how to shut my mind up! I think that is why it took so long for me to hear God’s voice. You see, for me it sounded VERY quiet. And I didn’t really know my shepherd’s voice all that well yet, so it sounded quieter than a whisper in my mind. 

For the record: I am not talking about an audible voice I hear, but one that intrudes my train of thought and speaks into my soul. This took a long time to hear well. It was very quiet for a long time, and I would have to sit and quiet my soul for a while intentionally before hearing from God. Eventually, I could hear him more easily, and just shift gears to my “listening to God” box instead of taking the step to quiet my soul. Then with more practice yet, God would interrupt my prayer journaling and start talking. Prayer time became more like a conversation with God, written down almost like a script. I would use a “-“ for my words and a “+” for God’s words to me. I kept many-a-prayer journals like this. As I practiced and got stronger, God would interrupt my thoughts on a daily basis. He would point out people who needed encouragement. He would stop me before I said something foolish. He would say “do this for me, not them”...which was great since I was a teenager and didn’t’ like to do things for my parents... J. God really became my friend! A daily enjoyment, and someone I could TRULY talk to intimately, not just talk AT. I wasn’t writing a one-way email or letter, I was having dialogue every time I prayed!

Oddly, this part of my life with God died down when I went to SBC... not totally sure why, possibly because I was so immersed in the life and history of Christianity that I didn’t “miss” him and stopped actively checking in. I would still hear from him on a daily basis as I went about my day, but the values of “hearing from God” seemed fairly Pentecostal to me, for my Mennonite surroundings, so I kind-of muffled this gift. (I also was confident in my gifts of prophecy by now, but daren’t speak of those either. These were my own un-founded fears of course, encouraged by the general Mennonite culture, and not by the college itself). So as life went on, and I went to BOOTH (who’se social work program is Christian in name only, in my opinion) these gifts almost vanished. We were taught to keep God separate from our profession. This was well-learned and has taken Kayla and I both several years to un-learn. (faster for me, since I went on Mat-leave and was able to think un-biasedly for a period of time). And then since college, I have ebbed and flowed in my relationship with God, as it applies to actually communing with him... The “creep” (my chosen word for satan, at times. Go ahead, chuckle J but it is true!) The creep planted a thought in my head that when I was hearing from God and acting on those instructions, that this might possibly just be Schizophrenia. Of course, this is un-founded and totally inaccurate. This idea was the combination of too many research papers on mental health, and not being close enough to my shepherd, that I knew his voice with confidence.

I am the good shepherd; I know my sheep and my sheep know me—John 10:14

My sheep listen to my voice; I know them, and they follow me. John 10:27

These verses haunt me on this topic greatly. It brings me so much conviction that the church doesn’t know Christ’s voice, and doesn’t even TRY to hear it most of the time. The truth is, maybe we are afraid of what it means, or how Christ might change our lives. This has been my excuse many times. But do you know what God always says back to me?

“Krysta I love you. Don't you think I want the best for you? Just because you don’t understand what I am doing, doesn’t mean it isn’t all-together good.” He then gets more specific depending on the request. Things like “strengthening requires effort, and sometimes pain”. “this isn’t for you, it is for me” and my favorite faith-required tasks response “let me worry about my own reputation. This isn’t about you.”

This has all been somewhat of a recent testimony of my relationship with God. Something intimate that most people care not to share. Please read these words and take them to heart, when I say that Jesus commands us to know his voice. I don't think he is necessarily saying, know the bible (although we are also to know the bible well so we can use it to fight evil, and so we can be as clever as foxes yet as innocent as doves). Jesus is saying that he sent us his holy spirit for a reason! Why are we shutting it out? Isn’t that why he went back to heaven!? To prepare a place for us, and to send us the holy spirit. Jesus said that through the holy spirit, he is with us ALWAYS! Well, if he is with us, we ought to hear his voice, and if we hear his voice, then we will KNOW his voice. Then he is our good shepherd and we, his sheep! Then we can take these verses in John seriousely. 

Listen for God today. Remember, this is Christmas. Although many shut God out, many more still, invite him in for this one time of year. That means God is near already. He  is always near of course, but at this time of year, I always find, I can hear Christ more clearly. Even Easter is more difficult, because there is much warfare surrounding it. The birth of Christ, welcomes him into the world. This is what people do all around the world Christmas morning. Why don't we take advantage of the fact that the world is worshiping our God for one day this year, and ask the holy spirit to speak boldy while he is so actively moving in our world?

Like I said, hearing from God can take time, especially when we don't know how to shut up. This took almost a month for me when I was in high school and VERY focused on the task, so be patient with yourself, but put earnest effort into quieting your OWN soul and listening for God’s. He WILL speak. He loves to speak to us.

I recommend writing it down, since it can be very assuring to keep a log, to look back on.

Dear God, thank you that you speak today, and not just in bible times. Thank you that we can ALL hear from you, and we do not have to go to anyone special to get a message from you. Thank you that you speak, even when we don't deserve to hear from you at all. Thank you that this is all possible because you sacrificed your own son for us. Thank you....Thank you for coming to earth and living such a real life, so that you can fully empathize with all our situations Lord...Thank you...God I pray that as people read this devotional, that it would touch their hearts. I pray that YOU would touch hearts, and open ears to hear you. Please God, make this task simple and attainable for those who desire it. We lift up our hearts to you God, and ask that you speak to them.
In Jesus name,
Amen

December 20 Advent

There is one last verse in Chapter one, that I don't really want to skip over (for the sake of not “picking and choosing”  which parts of scripture are important), so here’s the last two verses, to give you context!

²⁴ When Joseph woke up, he did what the angel of the Lord had commanded him and took Mary home as his wife. ²⁵ But he did not consummate their marriage until she gave birth to a son. And he gave him the name Jesus.  (Matthew 1:24-25)

This last verse may not seem important in a devotional perspective, but for the sake of a historical record, it is crucially important that Luke’s carefully researched collection of stories of Christ, includes the part where Mary didn’t have sex AT ALL until after Jesus was born! We cannot be sure of Joseph’s motivation  behind this though. Maybe he was continuing to be God-honoring  and wanted to keep Mary pure, or maybe it was very common practice in those days not to have relations with your wife if she was pregnant, or perhaps he was still slightly bitter despite his faith in God, and didn’t want any perception that this child would be his, if it came out a girl (which would prove all the prophecies they had both heard from angels wrong). Honestly, at this point, it doesn’t totally matter, because the main point is that he did it! Which takes a lot of integrity despite his motivation! Remember, he was newlywed, and loved Mary dearly.

The last part of the verse is also key! This is the verse that confirms to us that JOSEPH in fact names Jesus... This is very huge, because it showed publicly that Joseph accepted the role of father over this child. What this ALSO means, is that Joseph accepted the public shame that goes along with a child conceived out of wedlock. It takes two! And so the stigma which would have been Mary’s to bare alone, was theirs to bare together now. Joseph could fully support Mary under the weight of the judgmental glances, and stigmas she may have had to put up with. 

And so we close this portion of the Christmas story (the actual birth event) knowing that Mary and Joseph have both been equally chosen by God to be the parents of His son. Mary just happened to be the female in this equation, and so actually bore Christ, but Joseph was just as much his parent as Mary was.

Let us move on from some of the technicalities and shift gears to take a moment to marvel about the fact that we have just learned about Jesus coming to earth!! And God purposefully chose such humble circumstances to have his son enter our world. And let us not forget that His birth is only the beginning.

Here is a song by Steven Curtis Chapman called “this baby” (in case the link doesn’t work for you... just youtube it!). It’s an older song, but the words (and I somewhat liked this particular video too) really do tie it all together. This is fully about the BIRTH of Christ, which is the reason we can glorify God at all in any other events of the Christmas season. It is the reason we can glorify God that he chose shepherds or foreign kings to worship his son... Because it’s all about Jesus at the core. It’s about the fact that God brought Jesus to earth as an ORDINARY baby in an ORDINARY family... Praise God for the ordinary!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z1wlZoN6h9M

We have closed the story of Christ’s physical birth. Tomorrow we begin to hear about the wise-men’s journey and we move on from there to learn about some of the travels that Mary and Joseph endured for Jesus’s safety. But for today, we have one beautiful moment to simply dwell on Christ’s birth itself, and Worship God through it.

Here is another song to help bring you to that place of worship of Christ. This one may hit you in a special way if you have had a nurturing role in a young child’s life. (I mean, I’m pregnant, So I obviousely just bawled my eyes out! Haha). But it is a beautiful picture of how simple a baby is, yet ties in the huge significance of who this baby really was.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NgcGmgrNuLM (Mercyme – Joseph’s lullaby)

The truth is, this is all I have for today, because I truly believe we need to individually take time to worship Christ today, in this moment. This is not something I can do for you, it is something you must do for yourself. So I encourage you, to set aside even just the next five minutes, and sing, pray, worship, listen... take the next five minutes and give them to God, in worship for his Son.

God, we lift up this time to you now, and ask that you be here and present with us. Lord, meet us here and help to focus us on worshipping you. Lord, we give you this time now in holy worship of Jesus...

December 19 Advent

Lets continue in our Matthew chapter 1 version of the Christmas story! We left off, where Joseph, with tremendous character, spares Mary’s life and chooses to divorce her quietly for her infidelity. Today we pick up again at verse 20.

 But after he had considered this, an angel of the Lord appeared to him in a dream and said, “Joseph son of David, do not be afraid to take Mary home as your wife, because what is conceived in her is from the Holy Spirit. ²¹ She will give birth to a son, and you are to give him the name Jesus,^[a] because he will save his people from their sins.”
²² All this took place to fulfill what the Lord had said through the prophet: ²³ “The virgin will conceive and give birth to a son, and they will call him Immanuel”^[b] (which means “God with us”).
²⁴ When Joseph woke up, he did what the angel of the Lord had commanded him and took Mary home as his wife.  (Matthew 1:20-24)

This is a very action-packed four verses. Matthew sure seems to be efficient in what he says per sentence! I’ll brake it down by pieces. We start by learning that God actually waits to talk to Joseph, until Joseph had decided to divorce Mary. I sometimes wonder why this was... I guess the simple answer is perhaps God was testing both Joseph’s character (see what he would do) and his faith (see if he will change). I'd say if that was the case, Joseph passed both tests!  We learn next, that Joseph is a bit of a dreamer. This will not be his only conversation with God in a dream. Isn’t it interesting that his name is Joseph, like his ancestor (the one with the multicolor coat), who was also known for his dreams! Joseph in our story, has a legitimate encounter with an Angel of God (just like Mary did) commanding him to take Christ as his own son. This is where we see that Joseph was JUST as chosen as Mary was. Joseph is even commanded what to NAME his son. This is what really tips us off culturally to the fact that God was commanding him to father this child. Joseph otherwise would have likely refused, and Mary would have named Jesus in the temple. In reality, we ought to pay Joseph just as much respect as we pay to Mary, since he was just as much Jesus’s parent. (I bold this, because it is SO over-looked in the church today)

Matthew explains to us why this was happening in verse 22, quoting an old testament prophecy from Isaiah 7:14 (remember, Matthew’s account doesn’t have Mary’s encounter in it, so this is his way of covering that side of the story). Matthew does this a few times. It would seem his version of the story was written more to the Israelite population, since he references so many old testament prophecies, as well as takes the male perspective of the story, generally.

This last verse we are looking at today (vs 24) is the beautiful moral-filled part of today’s devotional... What did Joseph do when he woke up? Go ahead and read it again!...

...

No, seriously. Scroll up and read it.

...

Talk about acting on your faith!! Wow! This may be a totally separate account of Christ’s birth, but God’s message still powers through loud and clear! Joseph takes ALL his carefully thought through wisdom and grace, and tosses it out the window after a DREAM! Some of us might want to “test the spirit” in such a situation, but instead Joseph has so much faith in the fact that God would not allow him to be steered wrong in such a situation, that he totally changes his decisions on life itself! Not only this, but Joseph’s decision to take Mary following this dream shows something very pivotal to why Christ came at all... It shows that, without ANY proof other than a dream, Joseph chose to believe that his son was the Christ savior, even before the child was born! Before he even had it confirmed that Mary was carrying a son at all, and not a daughter! This is the kind of "actions based on faith" that God asks of us. This is the kind of faith I can only aspire to at this point, because what life-changing faith Joseph had to just.... DO IT!! God told him to change his whole decision on life, and Joseph just DOES IT! Because Joseph believes in God, and has faith in him. We know he had faith, because he ACTED on that faith, just as James commands us to do in the new testament... Wow... And to think this man is usually lost within the Christmas story. What a tradgity, because what a difference this made for Mary. Joseph had all the power in the world to change history, and destroy both Mary and the Christ before Christ was even born! But instead, he allowed Christ to be born with dignity into a loving home with two nurturing God-filled (and God-chosen) parents to raise him for his world-changing task ahead... how beautiful.

God, thank you for giving us such a perfect example of the simple faith you require from us! Thank  you for showing us we simply have to trust you and act, when we hear from you, because you will not steer us in the wrong direction! Thank you for Joseph and all that he did in raising your son here on earth, and we pray that his example will not be lost on us this Christmas. Please help us to learn and grow a faith like Josephs Lord....
In Jesus name,
Amen.

December 18 Advent

Today we begin to look at Matthew! I love the idea of going through both Matthew and Luke. We did this at mom’s group, where half our table read Matthew, and the other half read Luke. Then we compared and contrasted. It was so deeply meaningful and I highly recommend this exercise for any age group if you are looking for a good bible study for Christmas! 

With the book of Matthew, we will also be looking at the first two chapters, however, the chapters themselves are much smaller so it won't take nearly as long. Don’t get me wrong, the story packs a significant punch!

Today you get the beautiful genealogy! (Likely this is why people chose Luke over Matthew ;). I won't go through every name, but I do want to point out a couple of interesting points about the genealogy.  I won't hit on the ever-so-popular point-“there’s women in the genealogy”, since I feel that this has been over-done as of late (at least in my circles), and it's not a lesson I need to learn from at this point. But there are a couple of new things that stood out to me this year.

-          The number of tainted people in Jesus’s genealogy. Just goes to show, you are not what you came from. You are your own person...

o   Tamar – Daughter-in-law of Judah, who was widow to two of his sons, without leaving either of them an heir (due to the men’s wickedness). She eventually disguises herself as a prostitute, whom Judah himself takes advantage of, getting her pregnant with twins.

o   Rahab- another prostitute (she hides the spies to keep them safe)

o   Ruth – Not jewish

o   The long line of very evil kings... (13... minus two good ones in there)

-          Uriah is mentioned... (Rea at Mom’s group pointed this one out!) Uriah is the man whose wife David sees bathing on a roof top. He pressures her into infidelity which gets her pregnant. David then has Uriah killed in battle to cover up his own sin. The second child from David’s union with Bathsheba (who ISNT named in the genealogy) is Solomon...But what is interesting is that URIAH  is named in the geneology. It is so special that God doesn’t forget Uriah who dies a victimised death for being loyal to his king... He dies without an heir, and God chooses to have his name mentioned in the lineage of Jesus. What a gracious and loving God we serve.

What is really neat about these genealogies, is that in the old testament there are genealogies from Adam and Eve up until Abraham. So this genealogy takes us from Abraham to Jesus Christ... We know the direct blood line straight from Adam and Eve, up to Jesus Christ! How neat is that!? It may not be  the most exciting part of the story to read, but as far as historical significance goes, I am sure glad it’s in there! Especially after reading the old testament, its neat to read the genealogy and understand all the stories attached to each name in that book. It is very cool that almost everyone (up to the exile) is mentioned in the old testament as well. Talk about knowing where you came from!)

We will dive into the story of Jesus a little bit today, but I’ll leave you on a cliff-hanger for tomorrow! Matthew 1:18-19:

This is how the birth of Jesus the Messiah came about^[a]: His mother Mary was pledged to be married to Joseph, but before they came together, she was found to be pregnant through the Holy Spirit. ¹⁹ Because Joseph her husband was faithful to the law, and yet^[b] did not want to expose her to public disgrace, he had in mind to divorce her quietly.

Boy! Talk about different from Luke! No back-story, just straight into the meat of the plot! One trend you will see in Matthew’s version is that it is very much JOSEPH’S account of the birth story. Luke, you will see (as you read on in Matthew) is very much from Mary’s perspective (even John the Baptist, is HER relative. The genealogy in chapter three is HER genealogy, rather than Joseph’s which we read in Matthew). So as we can see, The plot right away is from Joseph’s perspective. She was discovered to be pregnant supposedly through the holy spirit... And naturally as an engaged man, Joseph was heartbroken, furious, and depressed. Legally she could be stoned to death for this, and I am sure part of Joseph (the angry part) would have been okay with this...But we can see that Joseph is also a man of both character and tenderness/sincerity. He was going to marry Mary because he loved her dearly. As such, he did not want to see her die, even though she "must have been" unfaithful to him... So he decides to do what any noble man would decide to do, break off the engagement quietly and just go their separate ways. Maybe she would be able to hide for the whole pregnancy, and give the baby to a relative to adopt. Perhaps she could hide the whole thing and live through her disgrace of unfaithfulness...

 

This is where I am going to end it... We all kind of know where this is going, but lets just take a moment to consider what Joseph was going through in these moments... The incredible heartache.  The anger towards Mary that she had the nerve to use God as an excuse for her behavior. Utter confusion at this lack-of-character in his betrothed that he thought he knew...  So many feelings bubbling up inside of him, and yet he makes such a grace-filled decision. He hold’s Mary’s life in his hands at this moment, and he makes the most loving and grace-filled decision any man could make in his shoes. He decides NOT to draw any attention at all to the situation, and to respectfully save his and her honor (what’s left of hers anyway).

Do  you know who this reminds me of? It reminds me of Christ.... and it reminds me of God...  Joseph's character also had a pivotal role in Christ's up-bringing and we need-not forget that. We know and respect and pay honor to Mary for being Chosen by God, but do we ever really acknowledge the fact that JOSEPH was also chosen? Heck! He would have done most of the teaching of Jesus’s growing up years! After all, Jesus did become a carpenter like his dad Joseph (we assume). We do not give the character of Joseph NEARLY enough credit in the bible story. We let him sort-of sit around in the back ground of the story, and mention him when he pops up, but otherwise forget him... in fact, we often treat him as though he isn't there at all when setting up a nativity scene, don't we? 

“oh ya! Joseph is in the nativity too. I thought that was another shepherd figurine!” (and then we promptly move whichever shepherd looks less shepherdly, to mary's side).

But the truth is (as we will discover tomorrow) Joseph hears from Gabriel just as validly as Mary does. He is JUST as chosen as she is, only he isn’t a sperm donor (because God wanted his son’s birth to be miraculous). But for all intensive purposes, Christ was just as much Joseph’s son as he was Mary’s. We ought to be confident in this because both were chosen to be his parents by God, and ultimately Jesus was fully God, and didn’t “belong” to either Mary OR Joseph. 

The truth is, we can learn a lot from Joseph’s character even in these two short verses. We learn about his sincere heart for Mary, and that he has the grace  and love of God in his soul. He chooses to act on these qualities right from the beginning of the story, before he has ANY confirmation from God... these are characteristics that come from deep relationship with God, and a longing to be like Him...

We too, should strive to have these qualities. They are not quickly attained, but come from much practice, many devotions, and devoted time spent investing-in and practicing-out your faith. Today, let us pray and thank God for choosing Joseph to parent his son, and ask God to teach us how to have His spirit, just as Joseph did.

Dear God, Thank you for hand-picking your son's dad here on earth. God, we sometimes over-look this aspect of the story, but we know you didn't over-look anything. We know that you brought Mary and Joseph together because you saw each of them as having the right faith and love for you, to parent your only son. Lord, help us to have hearts like Joseph, full of grace, love and compassion that goes beyond "common practice" or the rules of today. God give us a grace like Christ, Just as you gave to Joseph, for Mary even before he knew that she carried your son. God thank you that this is the very same grace that you have for us, that saves us from our sin. Thank you for that grace, which is why you sent Christ to earth in the first place. Lord, please begin softening our hearts, so we might acquire your beautiful grace, for all those in our lives as well. We know this is what you want, and we pray it in Jesus name, since it is also what he commanded us.

Amen.