In This Issue:
He Gave!
We Have Much to Sing Praises For!
The Humiliated Christ
His and Our Birth
Volume: 985 December 15, 2024
Theme: Christmas
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At a time when everyone is giving gifts to each other, it would do us well to remember what God has given us:
- God has given us everything we have: food, drink, health, the ability to work, and a mind to think and accomplish everything we do. There is nothing that we have that God has not, in one way or another, allowed us to have. Those who proudly proclaim they have “done it all themselves” do not understand that every breath, every heartbeat, and all that we do are allowed by God. There is no such thing as a “self-made man”.
“And also that every man should eat and drink, and enjoy the good of all his labour, it is the gift of God.” Ecclesiastes 3:13
“I have planted, Apollos watered but God gave the increase.” I Corinthians 3:6 - God has given the gift of salvation to all who will accept His way to Heaven. God has given His son, Jesus, to die and pay for our transgressions. All who accept Jesus’ death on the cross as payment for their sin can have the gift of salvation.
“For the wages of sin is death; but the gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord.” Romans 6:23
“For by grace are ye saved through faith; and that not of yourselves: it is the gift of God: Not of works, lest any man should boast.” Ephesians 2:8-9 - For those who are saved, God gave His gift of the Holy Spirit to them.
“… and ye shall receive the gift of the Holy Ghost.” Acts 2:38
“But the Comforter, which is the Holy Ghost, whom the Father will send in my name, he shall teach you all things, and bring all things to your remembrance, whatsoever I have said unto you.” John 14:26 - For those that are saved, God has given them one or more spiritual gifts to serve Him.
“Having then gifts differing according to the grace that is given to us, whether prophecy, let us prophesy according to the proportion of faith; Or ministry, let us wait on our ministering: or he that teacheth, on teaching; Or he that exhorteth, on exhortation: he that giveth, let him do it with simplicity; he that ruleth, with diligence; he that sheweth mercy, with cheerfulness.” Romans 12:6-8 - For those who are saved, God has given us power over the many obstacles we face during our lifetimes.
“And all things, whatsoever ye shall ask in prayer, believing, ye shall receive.” Mat. 21:22
“And whatsoever we ask, we receive of him, because we keep his commandments, and do those things that are pleasing in his sight.” I John 3:22
God is so wonderful to give us all that He has given us. None deserve His goodness. The least we can do is to give back to Him part of what He has allowed us to have.
We should give to Him, not because we have to, but because we want to. God wants us to serve, obey, and live for Him because we love Him. Do you love Him enough to give back to a giving God? No one can give more than our heavenly Father has, but will you give some of your time, finances, and life to Him?
“They gave him a manger for a cradle, a carpenter’s bench for a pulpit, thorns for a crown, and a cross for a throne. He took them and made them the very glory of his career.” — Orchard
We Have Much to Sing Praises For!
C. H. Spurgeon, Morning and Evening, Jan. 20
“And the shepherds returned, glorifying and praising God for all the things that they had heard and seen, as it was told unto them.” Luke 2:20
What was the subject of their praise? They praised God for what they had heard — for the good tidings of great joy that a Saviour was born unto them. Let us copy the shepherds and raise a song of thanksgiving that we have heard of Jesus and His salvation.
They also praised God for what they had seen. There is the sweetest music — what we have experienced, what we have felt within, what we have made our own; “the things which we have made touching the King.”
It is not enough to hear about Jesus. Mere hearing may tune the harp, but the fingers of living faith must create the music. If you have seen Jesus with the God-given sight of faith, suffer no cobwebs to linger among the harp strings, but be loud with the praise of sovereign grace. Waken your psaltery and harp.
One point for which they praised God was the agreement between what they had heard and what they had seen. Observe the last sentence: “… as it was told unto them.” Have you not found the Gospel to be in yourselves just what the Bible said it would be? Jesus said He would give you rest. Have you not enjoyed the sweetest peace in Him? He said you should have joy, comfort, and life through believing in Him. Have you not received all these? Are not His ways of pleasantness and His paths of peace?
Surely, you can say with the queen of Sheba, “The half has not been told me.” I have found Christ sweeter than His servants ever said He was. I looked upon His likeness as they painted it, but it was a mere daub compared with Himself, for the King in His beauty outshines all imaginable loveliness. Indeed, what we have “seen” keeps pace with, nay, far exceeds, what we have “heard.” Let us, then, glorify and praise God for a Saviour so precious and so satisfying.
“God be thanked for that good and perfect gift, the gift unspeakable; His life, His love, His very self in Christ Jesus.” — Babcock
The Humiliated Christ
Dr. Guthrie.,1854
Many name Tsar Peter I as the founder of the Russian Empire. He left his palace and the seductive pleasures and all the pomp and royalty to acquire the art of shipbuilding in the dockyard of a Dutch seaport.
He learned it so that he might teach it to his subjects. He became a servant, that he might be the better master, and lay the foundations of a great naval power in Russia. His country has been grateful. Saint Petersburg, which bears his name, is adorned with a monument to his memory. It is as massive as his mind, and the city has embalmed his deathless name in her heart and victories.
Yet, little as men think of Jesus, lightly as they esteem Him, His humbling acts were far greater than Tsar Peter’s. He was a king who became a subject that his subjects might find in Him a king. The Son of God stooped to toil and suffered great anguish that we would have a Hell-less eternity and a loving, guiding Lord. What an amazing sacrifice our Saviour gave for us!
“Being a humble instrument in the hands of our heavenly Father, I desire that all my words and acts may be according to His will. I give thanks to the Almighty, and seek His aid.” — Abraham Lincoln
His and Our Birth
Oswald Chambers
“And the angel answered and said unto her, The Holy Ghost shall come upon thee, and the power of the Highest shall overshadow thee: therefore also that holy thing which shall be born of thee shall be called the Son of God.” Luke 1:35
Jesus Christ was born into this world, not from it. He did not evolve out of history. He came into history from the outside.
Jesus Christ is not the best human being. He is a being who cannot be accounted for by the human race at all. He is not man becoming God, but God Incarnate, God coming into human flesh, coming into it from outside. His life is the Highest and the holiest entering in at the lowliest door.
“My little children, of whom I travail in birth again until Christ be formed in you,” Galatians 4:19
Just as our Lord came into human history from outside, so He must come into us from the outside. Have we allowed our personal human life to become a “Bethlehem” for the Son of God?
One cannot enter into the realm of the Kingdom of God unless one is born from above by a totally “unnatural” birth.
“Marvel not that I said unto thee, Ye must be born again.” John 3:7