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Christmas is upon us and at times it is easy to forget the true meaning of this special day--Hope is given to us through Jesus. As we reflect upon the responses of Mary and Zechariah as recorded in Luke 1:46-80, we see a common thread of God's grace and mercy woven through the fabrics of their lives...Hope is coming. Hope is given to the Individual as reflected in Mary's Magnificat where she exclaims her soul, her spirit rejoices in God her Savior for all things He has done and as a result, she records herself as a "bondslave" to God--bought and purchased for His will--and she embraces this! Hope is given to the People as recorded in Zechariah's prophecy whereby he confidently asserts "redemption is accomplished for His people..." and therefore God's people (all those who fear Him) can stand in confidence because a transaction will take place (death of God's only Son) to pay an eternal debt we could not afford to pay--"For by grace you have been saved through faith; and that not of yourselves, it is the gift of God; not as a result of works, so that no one may boast." (Eph 2:4-9) Finally, Hope is given to the hopeless whereby God's mercy and forgiveness will "...shine upon those who sit in darkness and the shadow of death, To guide our feet into the way of peace.” Even in Israel's rebellion as a nation, Isaiah prophesied of this coming hope that even in the midst of one's sins, God does not abandon His people.

Decisions have consequences and sometimes you and I make foolish decisions and as a result we live out the consequences and the enemy tries to steal our hope and pressures us to find our identity in our past mistakes rather than God's gift of His Son Jesus--the culmination of hope. As we will see in the coming blogs, the only way to "receive this Baby in a manger" is to humble ourselves, cry out to God for forgiveness of our rebellion toward Him and embrace the hope given unto us Christmas morning. Have you received this Hope?

Many of us are busy with life. Our "busy"ness tends to impact our relationship with God and impairs our ability to "see" people as those created in His image resulting in exploitation of people for personal gain (Neh 5:7). In Nehemiah 5 we read about an internal conflict between the people of God--brothers and sisters in the LORD exploiting one another--and when we trace the origin of this conflict, it finds its roots in the soil of selfishness, fertilized by distraction from the LORD (Neh 5:9).

If you and I are not careful in our walk with Jesus--daily devotional time, prayer time, application of what the Spirit reveals--we will find ourselves in the same situation in Nehemiah 5, Acts 6 and James 2 whereby we view people as a transaction for selfish gain, and not a personal investment to help heal and restore the image of the One that created them.

There is a lot to learn from King Uzziah mentioned in 2 Chronicles 26. Here is a man who began his reign at a young age pursuing God and seeking to do what was right in His eyes, not his own and God came along side and blessed Uzziah. Yet, we see a shift in verse 16 where Uzziah began to drift away from God because He was no longer the object of his focus, nor the anchor in his life; power, control and all the distractions and temptations of life uprooted Uzziah and pride caused him to drift away from God. You and I are prone to drifting when we lose focus on Christ. When we pursue Him for the simple joy of His presence, God blesses us in ways we can't imagine and He anchors us in His grace and mercy but when we allow the temptations of the world to pull our gaze away from Jesus, we, like Uzziah, begin to drift away from scriptural truth. In his album, Camp Songs, my friend, Scott Brownson, has a song titled "Turning Back To You" and in this song he records "I didn't mean to forget, I got caught in a gentle drift and lost my way." Are you caught in a gentle drift today?

Think about it, have you ever thought about the overwhelming challenge Nehemiah and the remnant faced when rebuilding the walls of Jerusalem that were 8-9 foot thick and about 40 feet high? The temptation to build one section of the wall in its entirety before any other to keep the enemy out would be prevalent in their minds but God had other plans. In order for the wall to be secure, you need to build it one layer at a time to interlock and this takes patience and teamwork. Doesn't God do the same thing in our lives today? We may want to focus on a "section" in our lives to hurry up and get it "fixed" yet God leads us to work through the entirety of our lives--all sections-- because God is not in the business of just "fixing" sections, but restoring us entirely, safely and securely.