Author: tld1969

“In those days Caesar Augustus issued a decree that a census should be taken of the entire Roman world. 2. (This was the first census that took place while Quirinius was governor of Syria.) 3. And everyone went to their own town to register.” Luke 2:1-3 NIV

In Mary and Joseph’s time, the government would randomly require the citizens to gather in the towns where they were from to take a census instead of going door to door as they have done in our time. There is a lot of history behind how Caesar Augustus came to power, so the short version is that he conquered all of his enemies and allies, yes I said allies. So now he was the ‘one’ in charge.

The ‘entire Roman world’ had seen war for many years and the war had produced disastrous results in the lives of it’s citizens. So once Caesar Augustus came to power, he ordered that a census be taken so he knew how many people were left and how many he could tax. As it is stated in verse 2, this was the first time in about 12 years that the government had required it’s citizens to gather for a census of this kind.

In verse 3 Luke tells us that everyone followed this order and began traveling to the towns where they were originally from. This is where I want to now focus on Mary and Joseph. Joseph was from the town of Bethlehem. Prophesy recorded in Micah 5:2, stated that the Messiah was to be born in Bethlehem. Jeremiah 23:5 records the prophet Jeremiah prophesizing that the Messiah is to be born of the line of David and Joseph is from the line of David. King David was raised in Bethlehem as was Joseph, so off to Bethlehem they went.

During this time of year, I encourage everyone to read the account of our Lord and Savior’s birth because it can remind us how much He gave up to come to earth to save us.

“Blessed are those whose help is the God of Jacob, whose hope is in the Lord their God.” Psalm 146:5 NIV

Verses 3 and 4 in this chapter are filled with warnings about placing hope and trust in anyone other than God. We are not perfect, we all have sinned, we all break promises at some point in our lives and we all are bound to make mistakes, but God does not. God doesn’t break promises or make mistakes for He is perfect.

The author of this psalm is warning in the verses 3 and 4 about this but then is able to turn this psalm from a psalm of sadness or negativity into one of hope and assurance. Blessed are those whose help is in God. Blessed, not cursed. This is wonderful.

The word ‘blessed’ in the Bible means to find favor with God and to have inner peace. This peace is a peace that no one else can offer or anything else can produce, it only comes from God. When we place our hope and source of help in God the Father, God the Son and God the Holy Spirit, we are placing it in the only place that is guaranteed.

When we look to God for our help and place our hope there as well, we are favored by God because He wants us to come to Him for help. He wants us to place our hope in Him because He is our creator and wants to be close to us. He will not force Himself on us because being loved by us when we have no choice is not truly being loved. Love comes as a freewill choice of the person giving it. God made it that way so when we choose to love Him, it would be because we want to love Him not because we have to love Him.

Where do you place your hope?

Where do you go for help?

I pray both of your answers are…God, but if they are not then I invite you to change where you place your hope and where you go for help. I invite you to choose to place your hope in the One True God. Lord over everything, in heaven and on earth, our Creator. Ask God to be your Lord and Savior, accept Him into your heart. Know that the place you can go to for help is the only true place where you are guaranteed to be heard. God hears you and wants you to willingly come to Him for help. God wants to help His children.

Where do you want to place your hope?

Where do you want to go to for help?

“Lord our God, other lords besides you have ruled over us, but your name alone do we honor.” Isaiah 26:13 NIV

Israelites knew what captivity looked and felt like. They knew what it was like to have others rule over them. Their people had been led away in captivity several times resulting in hundreds of years of living in foreign lands. They were instructed to honor the kings, emperors, and idols of whatever land they found themselves in. Some followed those instructions and others did not, usually at the risk of harm.

The prophet Isaiah is stating that he and those who were faithful to God, were only going to honor God. He acknowledges that there were times during their months and years of captivity that they could have chosen to do what their captors wanted but they decided to not honor, bow down to, or worship anyone or anything other than their God, their Creator and their Protector. Isaiah is proclaiming that the people of Israel are only worshipping one God, the One True God.

We face the choice of who to honor and worship even today. We are not captive in foreign lands with foreign kings or emperors but we have other ‘rulers, idols, kings’ that can draw our attention away from God. Rulers, masters and kings come in all shapes and sizes and do not need to actually be people. As a society, there are those who spend a lot of time trying to have as much money as they can get, obtaining as many belongings as they can, proving to others that they are worthy enough to be liked.

As we go into the week before Christmas, where we celebrate the actual Lord, I encourage you to look at where you focus your attention. Is it on God or something else?

“Then you will call on me and come and pray to me, and I will listen to you. You will seek me and find me when you seek me with all your heart.” Jeremiah 29:12-13 NIV

The prophet Jeremiah was completed his book during the time that the Israelites were in captivity in Babylon. They were in a foreign land and could not perform their religious ceremonies. Yet God was talking to them through Jeremiah and wanted them to know that when they call on Him, come to Him and pray to Him, that He will listen.

At that moment, the ceremonies and rituals didn’t matter. Their desire to be connected to Him is what mattered, so He was willing to listen to them if they sought Him, came to Him and prayed to Him. Their commitment to wanting to be connected was important in this relationship.

As we celebrate Christmas and remember the first arrival of Jesus to earth, we are not bound by religious ceremonies or rituals either when it comes to seeking God, going to God and praying to God. We can be connected to God the Father, God the Son and God the Holy Spirit when we genuinely seek God.

God knows our hearts and when we place value on our relationship with God, going to Him, He will listen. I am not saying that having traditions is a bad thing, it is a great way, but don’t let the idea of not being able to complete a tradition, ritual or ceremony get in the way of connecting with God. This is the time of year when we are to remember that Jesus left His heavenly kingdom and came down to us as a helpless babe who would grow up to save the world.

Remain connected to Jesus, He is our lifeline.

“Because he holds fast to me in love, I will deliver him; I will protect him, because he knows my name. When he calls to me, I will answer him; I will be with him in trouble; I will rescue him and honor him.” Psalm 91:14-15 ESV

Most psalms are written as letters or poems to God but these 2 verses contained within this psalm are written in the first person and appear to be coming from God. He is talking to His people. God is saying that because they have chosen to love Him, He will deliver them. It is our choice as humans to love God or not and when we do choose to love God, we are able to have a relationship with Him.

In these verses, God has promised to deliver those who love Him. He has promised to protect those who know His name. He has promised to answer those who call on Him. He has promised to rescue and honor those people when they are in trouble. These are amazing verses!

As amazing as they are, these are conditional promises that God has made, but God made them and as long as we do our part, God does His part. Our part is the beginning of each of the sections, what we are to do. Sometimes we forget to do our part and we wonder where God is and why He is not keeping His part of these promises. A quick read of these verses and we are reminded that we are involved in this relationship too, it is not all one sided with God being the one who is doing anything.

As you choose to love God continually, embrace the knowledge that He will deliver you, protect you, answer you, rescue you and honor you. He has promised and He doesn’t break His promises.

“Here there is no Gentile or Jew, circumcised or uncircumcised, barbarian, Scythian, slave or free, but Christ is all, and is in all.” Colossians 3:11 NIV

Paul continues here in Colossians to repeat what he has said in Galatians and Romans about there being no difference or distinction. When concepts or verses are repeated in the Bible, it is because they are important and important ideas need repeating so they are able to be absorbed by the person or people hearing it. Paul understood this and therefore many concepts and verses are repeated in his letters that are captured in the Bible.

Again, this idea of there being no difference in qualifications for people with God is expressed by Paul. Our human nature wants to put rules and conditions on most things. Since where our soul will spend eternity is a pretty big deal, we definitely want to put qualifiers on that so we can make sure we meet them. The challenge is that there is no qualifying to do, only acceptance of a gift, a gift from God the Father of His Son, Jesus and His sacrifice. Acceptance and belief in Who Jesus is and what He sacrificed for each person. Acceptance that Jesus came into this world as a helpless human baby to save this world from eternal separation from God.

The question isn’t….

‘Do you qualify by your nationality, race, gender, physical abilities, hair color, economic status’ or any thing you have ever done?

The question is….

‘Have you accepted Jesus as the Messiah, believe that He was born a babe in Bethlehem, as an adult willingly gave up His life for you to pay for your sins and after resurrecting from the grave ascended to Heaven to sit at the right hand of God the Father?’ That is the question.

The decision to accept is completely yours. I pray that if you haven’t made that decision yet, that during this Christmas season, you would make the decision to follow Jesus.

“For where two or three are gathered in my name, there am I among them.” Matthew 18:20 ESV

This verse speaks comfort to me. My home church congregation is not very large in number but I strongly believe this verse. I feel our Lord fill our chapel as we gather to worship Him. It is wonderful to know that for my Lord to be present there doesn’t have to be a large group of people. He is right in the midst of only a few people, just as He is in the midst of a large number of people.

Because Jesus is omnipresent, He can be everywhere all at the same time, in many gatherings, large and small in number. He doesn’t require us to be in a certain place, for it to be a certain time or for us to have a certain number of people gathered to be available to us to worship Him, discuss and learn about Him, pray to Him. That is wonderful because there are individuals who think that our Lord is only available at a certain time each day, in a certain place and only with the ‘right’ number of people present.

I, absolutely, want to see large gatherings of believers and non-believers who are looking for Jesus, that would be exciting. However, I love that Jesus is willing to be with us, revealing Himself to us in worship regardless of the number of people that have gathered. Jesus is very interested in relationships and wants to build relationships with us and for us to build relationships with each other. The most important relationship is the one we enter into with Jesus. He gave His life for ours so we don’t have to pay the penalty of eternal damnation for all of our sins. That is someone I want to be in a relationship with, someone who loves me that much.

So big or small in number, plentiful in resources or not, believers should gather together to worship Jesus and know that He is there among us. Have a wonderful day.

“Do not let any unwholesome talk come out of your mouths, but only what is helpful for building others up according to their needs, that it may benefit those who listen.” Ephesians 4:29 NIV

Paul, in his letter to the Ephesians, addressed several things. Again they were a church body that was very diverse and struggled with unity due to customs that were centuries old. Apparently one area that they struggled with was controlling their tongues. This is a battle for everyone, some people have honed this better than others, but we all struggle with it just like the people in Ephesus. Paul wanted the members of the church in Ephesus to be united in Christ and to help each other grow in their faith, not tear each other down.

As members of the body of Christ, we are to love each other, forgive each other and encourage each other. Jesus taught love, forgiveness mercy, and as His followers, we should be living in that manner as well. This is not only for us, who give love and then receive love, who give forgiveness and then receive forgiveness, but also for anyone who is not a follower of Jesus because they are witnesses to what the love of God can look like.

At Christmas time, we are more inclined to be kinder to each other, we tend to say nicer things to each other than we do at other times of the year. Whatever the reason for this behavior change, I believe that if we can do this during the Christmas season, then we should be able to do it throughout the rest of the year.

I encourage everyone in your prayer time with God to ask for clarity to see if this is an area you can grow in. Even as much as I think that I build others up no matter what time of year it is, I believe I can grow in this area. My challenge to us all is to live our lives so that those around us who are not followers of Jesus are able to see what the love of God can look like.

“But in your hearts revere Christ as Lord. Always be prepared to give an answer to everyone who asks you to give the reason for the hope that you have. But do this with gentleness and respect,” 1 Peter 3:15 NIV

Peter, in this letter, is encouraging the followers of Jesus who are being persecuted. The followers were having to answer about their new beliefs to their families, neighbors and communities who were steeped in tradition of Mosaic Law. What Jesus taught was removed enough from the ways of old that His teachings were not widely or easily accepted by elders within the communities where He taught them. Therefore after His ascension, the early Christians were persecuted for their beliefs. That is if they didn’t keep it a secret.

We are not to keep our belief in Jesus Christ as our Lord and Savior a secret. We are to be telling others the wonderful news of forgiveness, grace, mercy and love that comes from God. Paul is saying in this verse that the early Christians were to always be prepared to give an answer to someone who asked them about their faith. That is good advice for us today as well.

At this time of year there is a lot of focus on the secular way of celebrating Christmas and the secular reason for celebrating Christmas. It is wonderful to be generous and give each other presents to show our affections for each other. It is wonderful to get together with family and celebrate each other and our relationships. However, as Christians, we have an additional reason to celebrate Christmas and that is the birth of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. We have additional ways of celebrating that event as well. This additional reason and way of celebrating sometimes brings questions from others within our families and from some of our friends about why we are doing things the way we do them.

The enemy is sneaky and will place people in our lives who will ask us questions, especially at this time of year, that may begin to make us question our faith and the reason that we believe what we believe. By being grounded in the Bible, reading and studying God’s Word, we can have the answers to the questions we are asked about the faith we have, the hope we have, the reason we celebrate Jesus.

I encourage everyone to pray and ask God to help them have an answer ready for those who ask about our faith. We never know if the answer we give may lead someone to follow Jesus.

“As surely as I live, declares the Sovereign Lord, your sister Sodom and her daughters never did what you and your daughters have done. “Now this was the sin of your sister Sodom: She and her daughters were arrogant, overfed and unconcerned; they did not help the poor and needy. They were haughty and did detestable things before me. Therefore I did away with them as you have seen.” Ezekiel 16:48-50 NIV

In this chapter of Ezekiel, God is addressing the Jewish nation and how they have been treating Him. In these verses He is comparing them to the city of Sodom, where sin and disregard for God were plenty. The Jewish nation had done worse things than the occupants of Sodom and God rained down fire on the city of Sodom as punishment.

In the city of Sodom, the ground was fertile and this resulted in the residents being very successful in the area of agriculture. They residents of the city who were involved in the wealth of the agricultural business had an abundance of everything, the city was an independent city, not needing assistance from other areas. However, there were some among them that had little and those who could share their abundance, did not. The people of Sodom did not worship to the One True God, they worshipped many idols.

The Jewish nation is being accused of worse things than not providing for their poor and needy, which God takes very seriously. As the chosen people of God, the Jewish people knew God and what He expected, the laws that they were to keep. The crime that they committed was to see what the citizens of Sodom were doing, know it was wrong, but do it as well.

God counted this against them, essentially twice. First, when they committed the same wrong acts as the citizens of Sodom. Second, that they knew what was right and what was wrong and chose to follow their fleshly desires and go down the wrong path anyway.

As we draw closer to Christmas and then to the beginning of a new year, I encourage everyone to take some time today and think about the choices you have made over the past week, month and year. Are they the choices you wish to continue making or are they choices you wish you could go back and change? Either way, I pray that you would allow God to be part of your decision making process because He wants to be there with you each step of the way. Have a great day.