When it was time for Elizabeth to have her baby, she gave birth to a son. Her neighbors and relatives heard that the Lord had shown her great mercy, and they shared her joy. Luke 1: 579 (find this or any other passage at www.Biblegateway.org)
Do you remember the story? Zechariah, on duty in the temple, meets the angel Gabriel and discovers he and his wife Elizabeth will have a son, and they are to name him John. We know him as John the Baptist. Elizabeth is Mary's cousin, and Mary comes to be with her, now carrying the unborn Jesus, and stays with her, probably until John's birth. (The Scriptures do not say this, but Mary goes when Elizabeth is six months pregnant and stays with her three months. It seems likely that she would have assisted her cousin in the last months of her pregnancy, and with the delivery.
And so, Elizabeth, an old woman with no other children, gives birth to John, and her neighbors and relatives heard that the Lord had shown her great mercy, and they shared her joy.
Three months before the arrival of the Messiah, there is joy.
One week from today, we will celebrate His arrival. But my prayer for you is that you will find joy in this day. As John the Baptist heralded his Cousin, the coming King, may your presence in the world reflect your relationship with Jesus. No matter how much shopping, baking, card writing, or whatever that you have to do, or that you will not get done...please...please...take a moment and feel the joy, then share the joy of Christmas with someone.
And you, my child, will be called a prophet of the Most High; for you will go on before the Lord to prepare the way for Him, to give his people the knowledge of salvation...
Luke 1:76-77
These were Zechariah's words to his son, and, whether you are ever called 'prophet' or not, you, my child, can go on before the Lord to prepare the way for Him...to give His people the knowledge of salvation...and feel His joy...today.
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Questions:
1. Are you looking for joy in the preparations for Christmas?
2. Might you have to give something up in order to receive that joy?
3. What difference might that make to those around you?
INTERESTING THOUGHTS ON JOY:
"Wise leaders should have known that the human heart cannot exist in a vacuum.
If Christians are forbidden to enjoy the wine of the Spirit they will turn to the wine of the flesh.
Christ died for our hearts and the Holy Spirit wants to come and satisfy them."
A.W.Tozer
"Rejoice, that the immortal God is born,
so that mortal man may live in eternity."
John Huss
"Spirit filled souls are ablaze for God.
They love with a love that glows.
They serve with a faith that kindles.
They serve with a devotion that consumes.
They hate sin with fierceness that burns.
They rejoice with a joy that radiates.
Love is perfected in the fire of God."
Samuel Chadwick
"The chief end of man is to
glorify God by enjoying him forever."
John Piper
"God created things which had free will.
That means creatures which can go either wrong or right.
Some people think they can imagine a creature which
was free but had no possibility of going wrong;
I cannot. If a thing is free to be good it is also free to be bad.
And free will is what has made evil possible.
Why, then, did God give them free will?
Because free will, though it makes evil possible,
is also the only thing that makes possible
any love or goodness or joy worth having."
C.S. Lewis
. "The Scotch catechism says that man's chief end is
'to glorify God and enjoy Him forever.'
But we shall then know that these are the same thing.
Fully to enjoy is to glorify. In commanding us to glorify Him, God is inviting us to enjoy Him."
C.S. Lewis
"We are to be re-made. All the rabbit in us is to disappear---the worried, conscientious,
ethical rabbit as well as the cowardly and sensual rabbit.
We shall bleed and squeal as the handfuls of fur come out;
and then, surprisingly, we shall find underneath it all a thing we have never yet imagined:
a real Man, an ageless god, a son of God, strong, radiant, wise, beautiful, and drenched in joy."
C.S. Lewis
"The joy of the Lord will arm us against the assaults of our spiritual enemies and
put our mouths out of taste for those pleasures with which the tempter baits his hooks."
Matthew Henry
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