SOMEONE WITH SKIN ON

     I want to share with you my favorite Christmas story. This is a repeat from my book, “Max Speaking – Devotionals From My Heart.”  You will find it on page 31in the book.  I hope that you will enjoy the story of Christmas again, as I enjoy telling it.  

     A little girl had been tucked in bed one night after the family prayers.  It was a stormy night, the lightning flashed across the sky and thunder shook the house.  The youngster endured this as long as possible. Then, she scurried to the living room and threw herself into her mother’s arms exclaiming, “I am afraid.”  The mother quieted the child as she put her back to bed saying, “Remember, honey, God loves you and He will keep you safe.”
But, no sooner had the mother returned to the front room and seated herself comfortably, than the child appeared in the doorway crying, “Mommy, I’m still afraid.”  Mother put the child back to bed telling her, “Honey, you must stay in bed, you are perfectly safe, I told you that God loves you and He will take care of you.”  The little girl replied, “I know God loves me mommy, but, when it is thundering and lightning, I want someone with skin on to love me.”

      Jesus was God in human flesh.  He put skin on in order for us to know Him. 
What was God like as a baby?  Go to Bethlehem and stand by the cradle of the child, Jesus.   What was God like as a growing boy?  Go to the carpenter’s shop in Nazareth and see Jesus as He learns the carpenter’s trade from Joseph.   What was God like in temptation?  Go into the wilderness and share in the fierce attack of the devil upon Jesus.
What was God like in making decisions?  Go to Gethsemane and hear Him pray, “Not my will but your will be done.”    What was God like in suffering and dying?  Go to Calvary and see Jesus hanging upon that cross, dying for sinful humanity.    What was God like in victory?  Go to the empty tomb and hear the angel declare, “He is not here, He is risen, even as He said.”
 
      We can know what God is like.  He is like Jesus.  Only Jesus could say, “The Father and I are one.”…”When you have seen me, you have seen the Father.”

     May Christmas mean this to us, that the coming of Jesus is God’s unmistakable revelation of Himself to us.

                    “He became like us, so we could become like Him.”

 

A BABY MAKES ALL THE DIFFERENCE

  A baby makes all the difference in the world. A baby changes completely the way of life when he or she comes into our lives.  This little helpless bundle of joy soon has the complete household moving around him or her. Sacrifice and inconvenience is cheerfully taken in stride. Here is the product of Love’s consummation.

  Babies have an uncanny way of changing life and history.
For instance: Pharaoh’s daughter, bathing in the Nile River, heard a baby’s cry. This baby had been hidden by a fearful mother. He is lifted from the river, brought in to the court of Egypt and reared as an Egyptian Prince.  This baby brought joy to the princess and eventually, by God’s power, freed the whole enslaved Jewish nation. The baby was Moses.   A son was born to Abraham and Sarah when they were around a hundred years of age.  This baby came to be the seed through whom God would bless the whole human race, for from the seed of Isaac the Messiah was to be born.  Zacharias and Elizabeth were amazed at the arrival of their son.  A son destined by God to be the forerunner of Jesus.  John was to prepare the way in the hearts and minds of people through the preaching of repentance for the coming of Jesus.  

  But, no baby on earth has made the difference that the baby of Bethlehem made.
Hear again and ponder carefully in your heart this announcement of the angels:
“She will give birth to a son, and you are to give him the name Jesus, because he will save his people from their sins.”  Matthew 1:21  

  Linger at the cradle to gaze upon God in the flesh but we must not stay there. Christmas must be more than a sentimental tale of a manger birth.  This Jesus grew up to be a man, living a perfect, sinless, life and then taken by cruel hands and killed upon a cross. He did not stay dead but, by the power of God, He resurrected and ascended to the right hand of God in glory.  God has made this Jesus, both Lord and Savior.  He died to save us from our sins.  We must accept Him as our Savior, (Deliverer) and also, as our Lord, (Master).     

“O Holy Child of Bethlehem  descend to us, we pray.
Cast out our sin and enter it, be born in us today.    
O come to us, abide with us, Our Lord Immanuel.”

BLACK AND WHITE NOTES

“Always giving thanks to God the Father for everything”…Ephesians 5:20

  “We once saw a man draw some black dots.  We looked and could make nothing of them, but an irregular assemblage of black dots.  Then he drew a few lines, put in a few rests, then a clef at the beginning, and we saw these black dots were musical notes. On sounding them we were singing…”Praise God from whom all blessings flow,  Praise Him all creatures here below.”

  There are many black dots and black spots in our lives, and we cannot understand why they are there or why God permitted them to come. But if we let God come into our lives, and adjust the dots in the proper way, and draw the lines He wants, and separate this from that, and put in the rests at the proper places; out of the black dots and spots in our lives He will make a glorious harmony.  Let us not hinder Him in this glorious work.

  Would we know that the major chords were sweet, if there were no minor key?
Would the painter’s work be fair to our eyes, without shade on land or sea?
Would we know the meaning of happiness, would we feel that the day was bright, if we’d never known what it was to grieve, nor gazed on the dark of night?

  When the musician presses the black keys on the great organ, the music is as sweet as when he touches the white ones, but to get the capacity of the instrument he must touch them all.”              Selected

  We are called to be faithful in all situations, whether the keys are black or white. Suffering and evil are temporary, they will end forever.  Eternal joy is on its way for the faithful.  It is critical that we give a proper response to suffering and evil. God counts precious those who suffer and remain faithful. We need to trust in a person and a place.  
                     That person is JESUS and that place is HEAVEN.

“A MAN WITHOUT A COUNTRY”

  Edward Everett Hale wrote the story “The Man Without a Country,”  It is about a young Army lieutenant, named Philip Nolan, who stands condemned for treason during the Revoluntionary War.  When the judge asks him if he wishes to say anything before sentence is passed, young Nolan defiantly exclaims, “Damn the United States. I wish I might never hear of the United States again.”

  The coutroom is shocked and after a long pause, the judge soberly says to the angry lieutenant: “You have just pronounced your own sentence.  You will never hear of the United States again. I sentence you to spend the rest of your life at sea, on one or another of this country’s naval vessels – under strict orders that no one will ever speak to you again about the country you have just cursed.”    

  And so it was. Philip Nolan was taken away and spent the next 40 years at sea, never hearing anything but an occasional slip of the tongue about America.  The last few pages of the story, recounting Nolan’s dying hours in his small stateroom – now turned into a shrine to the country he cursed.  Deprived of a homeland, Nolan slowly and painfully learns the true worth of his country.  Without it, he was nothing.

  The Hebrew writer describes the people of God by writing: “All these people were still living by faith when they died.  They did not receive the things promised; they only saw them and welcomed them from a distance. And they admitted that they were aliens and strangers on earth. People who say such things show that they are looking for a country of their own…They were longing for a better country – a heavenly one. Therefore God is not ashamed to be called their God, for he has prepared a city for them.”  Hebrews 11:13-16  We Christians, like Abraham of old, “look forward to the city with foundations, whose architect and builder is God.” Hebrews 11:10

  How tragically sad to be a man without a country.  A person, without Jesus Christ, is in that situation.  They are homeless, no where to go, but to a dark hole in this earth. It does not have to be that way.  God holds out hope for every person to claim, through faith in Jesus, that HOME in glory with Him.

                            Are you headed home?