By Sami Fortin
Special to The PREVIEW
Dear Lord,
This Christmas gives us a whole new purpose — one that takes our eyes off of who we are or what we’ve done so that we might ponder the wonder of who you are — not only what you’ve done but who you are.
Take us back to the night you were born and let us look upon the faces of Mary and Joseph as they gazed into your eyes knowing who you were but not having foreknowledge of all that would take place. They just went about doing what they knew to do.
Let us get a feel for the starry night when the shepherds saw the angels. What a sight that must have been and the message they heard, “Good news for all.” Could that mean me also?
Oh, what a night to follow the star and find out it was just as you said, they’d find the baby wrapped in cloths laying in a manger. The King of the World. Born in a manger? What do we see here? A way for us to relate to you. A way for us to understand you came to have a relationship with us. Help us to grasp the whole picture of your amazing love for a people who find it hard to believe you created the earth for this purpose.
Can we see the wise men traveling from afar? They didn’t know what to expect. They just obeyed what they knew to do. They’d been waiting 400 years for prophesy to be fulfilled. They had to see with their own eyes.
Give us this same excitement over all the hustle and bustle just to come and see the babe that was born in Bethlehem to a virgin.
Father, show us your glory in this season and turn our hearts toward yours, for you are not far from any one of us. Move your people to reach out and find you. You’ve commanded us to repent for you have set a day when the whole world will be judged in righteousness by this one man who was born to a very unlikely couple, beating all the odds in prophesy.
Help us to let down our guard, take a chance and believe this Christmas that Immanuel wants us to hear His voice, to know His touch and give a response to all He has done. Let us worship Him as Lord of Lords and King of Kings.
Like the wise men who brought gifts, let your people bring their hearts and lift up their hands in praise, not to a God of stone but one who lives among us and delights in us.
Let us see you in all the lights and decorations. In the excitement of buying gifts for one another, let us not forget the greatest gift of all: Jesus. In Jesus’ name I pray. Amen.
He’s waiting for us to come, He hears our prayers and He’d rather die than live without us.
“I’m just a nobody, trying to tell everybody about somebody who saved my soul.” — Casting Crowns.
I’m working on obeying God when I hear Him call. This is a daunting task, one that I’m not qualified to fulfill, but I have found Him faithful and He calls the unqualified to finish His work here on earth. Just as He came as a human baby to this place in a most unlikely way to call us into a most holy place with Him. He’s the deliverer. He delivers us from darkness into light from wrath into joy from destruction into eternal life.
