Wednesday 3 Dec 2014

December 3: Luke 2:8-12

Key Verse: Luke 2:10
Then the angel said to them, “Do not be afraid, for behold, I bring you good tidings of great joy which will be to all people.

Devotion:
Have you ever wondered how people actually spoke in the days of Jesus’ birth? How would the angels have actually broken the news to the shepherds and how would they have broken the news to Mary and Joseph. We can come up with all manner of ways in which we think things were but the truth is that all we have is what has been written down by some dedicated people many years after the event; but people that God trusted to get the job done properly.

Now we talk in all sorts of ways in our modern society… If we were to see the conversations as if they went back and forward via SMS messages, then we may have something recorded in a totally different way with all manner of short words without verbs and abbreviations and acronyms that we would get wrong in the years to come! We have to have faith in God and in how He has made the story of Jesus’ birth last all these years for us to know the truth. If it had been written down in others ways then just maybe we would not be re-telling it like it was.

As a youth leader I spend far too much time on YouTube and other media places looking for new ways in which I can engage with the youth. I try my best to keep up to date with the youth of today but don’t try to be one of them… because I am not. I am somewhat older and hopefully wiser because of many years of listening and learning. I apply what I have learned to move forward with God. We live in an ever-changing world where we have to come to terms with new ways of speaking with others. It does not mean that I have to be a youth, nor does it mean I have to change my values or my beliefs… it just means that I have to be ready to accept that the youth of today are very different to how we were!

God wants us to know Him and to love Him. That means accepting the way that people were back in those days when we read the story of Jesus and apply that into our modern world. It does not mean changing the story. It means applying it today as if it was happening today. Jesus is real. What happened is real. Live with it and embrace it as reality.

Points to Ponder:
Do you struggle with learning?

Are you really accepting the truth?