You are currently browsing the tag archive for the ‘Christmas devotional’ tag.
You are my refuge and my shield; your word is my source of hope. Psalms 119:114
Do you have trouble throwing away those ‘love letters’ from long ago? Perhaps a card, or a note scribbled on paper from someone you love. Perhaps you even take them out from time to time when you are feeling hopeless because they remind you that even though life around you seems to be falling apart, you have this one gentle reminder that life will be okay, that the things that are troubling you are a blip on the screen of life.
Some look at the Bible as a confusing book that’s hard to understand. I look at it as a love letter. A friend of mine told me of a time her husband was deployed overseas. She was home with the kids. This was before internet and instantaneous, global communication.
When a letter arrived from her husband, the world stopped. She would sit and read it carefully. It was almost as if he were there. It was a reminder of hope. It was a reminder that this struggle was temporary. It was a reminder that she was making it and soon he would rejoin them.
The Psalmist paints that kind of picture of God’s word. Oh, the Bible is full of deep theological truths to be sure, but the overriding theme is a love story of a God who earnestly wants you to enjoy his company. Immanuel, God with us.
Some day, he’ll return in physical presence. Until then we have a love letter of hope. May His Word fill you with hope this Advent season and beyond.
I praise God for what he has promised. I trust in God, so why should I be afraid? What can mere mortals do to me? Psalms 56:4
Christmas is often referred to as the night love came down, and nothing is more true. God reached down that night after hundreds of years of silence through a teenage girl to bring love into the world through a tiny babe in a manger.
This love was directed towards a people who had time and again proven themselves to be untrustworthy. From a human perspective, trust is foundational to love. You may have heard someone say something like, “I love him, but I just can’t go on. I can’t trust him anymore” or, “she simply can’t be trusted to do the right thing.”
But from God’s perspective? That night he showed us a kind of love seldom seen on the human level. He loved expecting nothing in return. He loved knowing he’d be stood up. He loved knowing that the ones he loved would never be able to return that love.
In God’s world, trust isn’t required for love because his love transcends our ability to be trusted or to love the way he loves. God loves us without our ability to be trusted. God loves us in spite of our inability to love him back. Can we trust him enough to love him when we don’t understand his working?
Mike Fisk & Built with Grace 