god

happy birthday Baby!

Posted on by Grace Day

“The virgin will be with child and will give birth to a son, and they will call him Immanuel – which means, ‘God with us.’ “ (Matthew 1:23)

“But the angel said to them, ‘Do not be afraid. I bring you good news of great joy that will be for all the people. Today in the town of David a Savior has been born to you; He is Christ the Lord. This will be a sign to you: You will find a baby wrapped in cloths and lying in a manger.’ “ (Luke 2:10-12)

Happy Birthday, Baby and welcome to our world –

angels announced Your arrival, the stars in the heavens unfurled

to welcome You on that Silent Night when all creation sang –

across the hills of Bethlehem such good tidings rang!

“For unto us a child is born, unto us a Son is given.”

bearing witness to the long-awaited miracle of Your birth –

Immanuel, God with us, our Redeemer come to earth.

You left Your home in glory, to make Your home with men,

We were not worthy, still You came, to take away our sin.

God’s gift to me in the manger lay, over two-thousand years ago –

this same gift is offered me still today, I dare not let it go

unacknowledged, unwrapped, ungratefully unreceived,

this gift of God will change my life, if only I believed.

in the power of the Baby in the manger to bring a dying world life,

to bring His light into our darkness and His peace into our strife. 

“Suddenly a great company of the heavenly host appeared with the angel, praising God and saying, ‘Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace to men on whom His favor rests.’ “ (Luke 2:14) 

Oh, Immanuel, Immanuel! You have come to rescue and redeem the lost.

How glad I am that you came for me, Your love overcoming all cost.

“He humbled Himself and became obedient to death – even death on a cross!” (Phil. 2:8)

Oh, happy birthday, Baby – I’m so glad you came!

I will celebrate Your birthday and forever praise Your name!

“Therefore God exalted Him to the highest place and gave Him the name that is above every name, that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.” (Philippians 2:9-11)

Your birth changed the world forever, bringing us hope and truth and grace,

So we celebrate Your birthday, the day true love found its face.

“We have seen His glory, the glory of the One and Only, who came from the Father, full of grace and truth.” (John 1:14)

sincerely,  Grace Day 

Advent’s perfect timing

Posted on by Grace Day

Well, there are some presents under the tree at present – so preparations are moving forward as Advent swiftly approaches. And yes, there is now a tree. This is an update to the previous post in which it appeared the Grinch had successfully grabbed Christmas and run away with it. But today – “It’s beginning to look a lot like Christmas” here, if I may be so bold as to borrow the title of that well known Christmas song. I am making up for lost time or redeeming the time, so to speak.

However, I take comfort in and draw hope from the fact that my Heavenly Father is Sovereign over all time and manages it perfectly. Unlike my own, God’s timing is always perfect. He is never early, nor is He ever late. I feel like some time has been taken from me, during this season of Advent when I most need time in order to prepare properly for the upcoming celebration. Time seems to be a taker. Over the years, time has taken those I have loved along with relationships and opportunities. Still, I have hope because of God’s promise in Joel –

“And I will restore to you the years that the locust hath eaten, the cankerworm and the caterpillar, and the palmerworm, my great army which I sent among you.” (Joel 2:25)

I love the hope of those words. All is not lost forever. My Heavenly Father is the God of reconciliation and restoration. He certainly restored to Job all he had lost and more. But it’s more than material possessions. God says He will restore “the years that the locust hath eaten.” The years – that’s time. Only God can restore time. God alone is from all eternity. God alone “makes known the end from the beginning, from ancient times, what is still to come.” (Isaiah 46:10) Only God can restore the years that He ordained from all eternity. Time is in God’s hands. In Ecclesiastes I read –

“There is a time for everything, and a season for every activity under heaven:” (Ecclesiastes 3:1)

We are in the season of Advent currently, celebrating the arrival of God’s Son, Jesus here on earth. This miraculous event, planned before the foundation of the world, took place exactly when God intended it to happen. Jesus’s birth occurred in God’s perfect timing. 

“But when the time had fully come, God sent His Son, born of a woman, born under law, to redeem those under law, that we might receive the full rights of sons.” (Galatians 4:4-5)

The NLT translation says, “When the right time came” – assurance to us that Jesus came at just the right time in human history. He came according to God’s timetable, not man’s, even though the people had long been looking for the appearance of their promised Messiah. But since God is the creator and establisher of the eternal timetable, it is His timing which prevails and His timing is always perfect. I can count on God’s perfect timing in my own life and in the events of human history. 

Jesus’s Advent or arrival was God’s perfect timing, as was Jesus’s sacrificial death. Romans tells us this –

“You see, at just the right time, when we were still powerless, Christ died for the ungodly.” (Romans 4:6) 

Jesus came to us in God’s perfect timing. He laid down His life for us in God’s perfect timing and now we await His return, His second coming, knowing that it will be in God’s perfect timing as well, even though the wait seems overly long to us now. But we are reminded in Peter –

“With the Lord a day is like a thousand years, and a thousand years are like a day. The Lord is not slow in Keeping His promise, as some understand slowness. He is patient with you, not wanting anyone to perish, but everyone to come to repentance.” (2 Peter:3:8-9)

“Bear in mind that our Lord’s patience means salvation, just as our dear brother Paul also wrote you with the wisdom that God gave him.” (2 Peter 3:15)

Evidence of God’s perfect timing, not slowness but patience – His patience towards each one of us, a patience full of compassion, mercy and hope – His hope that we will come to know the truth of who His Son Jesus is, that we will prepare Him room and invite Him in. This is the hope of Advent – that as we prepare to celebrate the Christ Child’s coming, we are also preparing to receive Him again when He returns.   

We don’t know when Christ will return, only that it will be in God’s perfect timing. In Matthew I read –

“No one knows about that day or hour, not even the angels in heaven, nor the Son, but only the Father. . . . Therefore keep watch, because you do not know on what day your Lord will come. . . . So you also must be ready, because the Son of Man will come at an hour when you do not expect Him.” (Matthew 24:36, 42,44)

In God’s perfect timing, “the Word became flesh and dwelt among us.” In God’s perfect timing, Jesus died on that cross for my sins and rose again. And in God’s perfect timing, Jesus is coming back for me. 

“And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come back and take you to be with Me that you also may be where I am.” (John 14:3)

Mine is to wait, to watch, to prepare for the Advent of His coming, to be ready to let Him in when He arrives. Jesus has come. Jesus is coming again! Both events are worth celebrating. Jesus calls out to us –

“Here I am! I stand at the door and knock. If anyone hears My voice and opens the door, I will come in and eat with him, and he with Me.” (Revelation 3:20) 

Advent – preparing to receive Him, preparing to let Him in

“Lift up your heads, O you gates; be lifted up, you ancient doors, that the King of glory may come in. Who is this King of glory? The Lord strong and mighty, the Lord mighty in battle. Lift up your heads, O you gates; lift them up, you ancient doors, that the King of glory may come in. Who is He, this King of glory? The Lord Almighty – He is the King of glory.” (Psalm 24:7-10)

sincerely,  Grace Day 

 

Advent’s songs tell the story

Posted on by Grace Day

I punch the buttons on my car radio as I drive, not satisfied with any of the musical offerings that come into my car with each change of the radio station. I have already grown weary of Jingle Bell Rock, Chestnuts Roasting over an open fire, Rudolf the red-nosed reindeer, Winter Wonderland, White Christmas, Santa Claus is coming to town, It’s beginning to look a lot like Christmas, Frosty the Snowman, Let it snow, Santa Baby, Rockin’ around the Christmas Tree – well, you get the idea. These “songs of the season” don’t really give me any clue as to who or what we are actually celebrating. 

But there is music that runs through my mind today, filling the silence with it’s almost forgotten words from the past. The song is “O Little Town of Bethlehem.” But as usual I only mostly recall the first verse, so I look up the words to the other three verses to satisfy my curiosity or maybe my longing to bring back those childhood years of singing this and other carols as we celebrated the Advent season. These carols always made so real to me the miracle of Jesus coming here to earth as a baby, the miracle that is Immanuel – God with us. I couldn’t sing the words without reliving the age old story once again. That is still true to this day.

After four hundred years of God’s silence, His people were desperate for His presence. Had they given up hope? Had they stopped watching for His appearance? Seems as if the arrival of the Messiah took them by surprise. Maybe that’s because Jesus wasn’t born in a big, important city such as Jerusalem. He chose instead to be born in a small, out of the way, little known town called Bethlehem. The story is told beautifully in the carol, “O Little Town of Bethlehem”, which as I said, is the song in my head today. It begins -  

“O little town of Bethlehem, how still we see thee lie! . . . Yet in the dark street shineth, the everlasting Light, the hopes and fears of all the years, are met in thee tonight. For Christ is born of Mary, . . . O morning stars together proclaim the holy birth, and praises sing to God, the King, and peace to men on earth.” 

How true the words and how wondrous! Into our darkness comes the Light. All the hopes of mankind are realized in the person of Jesus Christ, and all the fears of man are conquered with His appearance on our behalf. 

“In Him was life, and that life was the light of men.” (John 1:4)

“Jesus said, ‘I am the light of the world. Whoever follows me will never walk in darkness, but will have the light of life.’ “ (John 8:12) The third verse of the song continues –

“How silently, how silently, the wondrous Gift is given! So God imparts to human hearts the blessings of His heaven. No ear may hear His coming, but in this world of sin, where meek souls will receive Him still, the dear Christ enters in.”

This song acknowledges Jesus as “the wondrous Gift given” to us by God and further tells us that we can receive this gift and Jesus will “enter in” if we have prepared a place for Him in our hearts and in our lives, if we have, as another song says – “prepared Him room.”

The fourth verse echoes the yearning of every human heart for redemption from this broken world and for reconciliation with our holy Creator. The carol continues –

“O holy Child of Bethlehem, descend to us we pray. Cast out our sin and enter in, be born in us today. We hear the Christmas angels, the great glad tidings tell, O come to us, abide with us, our Lord Immanuel!”

God did descend to us when Jesus was born in Bethlehem that first Christmas. He did come to cast out our sin, making room, so that He could enter into our lives and we could be born again. He came to abide with us. Jesus is Immanuel!

“The Word became flesh and made His dwelling among us. We have seen His glory, the glory of the One and Only, who came from the Father, full of grace and truth.” (John 1:14)

The words of the carol tell the story that we celebrate every year. We celebrate the birth of God’s only Son, the birth of the promised Messiah, the birth of the Savior, the birth of the sacrificial Lamb of God, the birth of the Prince of Peace, the birth of the King of kings and the Lord of lords. Jesus is all these things and so much more. He brings light into our darkness and hope into our despair. How can we not celebrate that He was born, fulfilling the promise of God to redeem us for Himself? 

When I feel like Christmas is getting lost in the celebrating of the event itself, I find that singing the old songs, songs that tell the story of Christmas, shifts my focus from what surrounds me to the event we say we are celebrating, the event which tore time in two, an event that took place over two thousand years ago, but continues to this day to be the event that changed human history irrevocably, for now and for eternity.

The King has come! The King is coming! Time to celebrate the former while preparing for the latter. The time is now. Advent is here. ”Let every heart prepare Him room!”

“Lift up your heads, O you gates; be lifted up, you ancient doors, that the King of glory may come in. Who is this King of glory? The Lord strong and mighty, the Lord mighty in battle. Lift up your heads, O you gates; lift them up, you ancient doors, that the King of glory may come in. Who is he, this King of glory? The Lord Almighty – He is the King of glory.” (Psalm 24:7-10) 

Lord, King of glory, may my heart not be closed to You this Advent season. 

sincerely,  Grace Day