During this Christmas season I read the early days of Christ.
I was struck by how ordinary lives were visited by God to do extraordinary things. Through the Holy Spirit a virgin conceived the Son of God. Mary was one of the many thousands of young Jewish women living in her day but God chose this woman of no notable birth or means. Joseph was a righteous man who descended from a long line of kings stretching back to David yet he lived his life in simplicity as a carpenter.
Then there is Jesus. The Son of God who without sin lived thirty years a quiet and ordinary life as Joesph and Mary's son before His ministry commenced at thirty three years old. The Scriptures are silent during those years when he grew into a man.
If I could speculate Jesus must have looked around the world in which He lived (and the one we are in today). He witnessed the every day experiences of people stricken by poverty or greed, cruel oppression, sickness and death. There had to be an inward groan growing louder in his heart with each passing year until His Father released Him to preach the good news as Savior of the world.
Think of how many times His fingers traced over the smooth wood he had carved reflecting on a day when an inward groan would escape His holy lips while dying on the tree! Such a groan would reverberate through the corridors of history and shake the foundations of hell. It is finished!
Now we are on the edges of entering a new year.
With passing year there should be a deepening groan for Christ to change us in His likeness. A groan for His return so that in seeing Him face to face we are made complete (1 Corinthians 13:12). Paul described it in Romans 8:22, "We know that the whole creation has been groaning as in the pains of childbirth right up to the present time. Not only so, but we ourselves, who have the firstfruits of the Spirit, groan inwardly as we wait eagerly for our adoption to sonship, the redemption of our bodies." (NIV).
As sons and daughters of God we are no ordinary people so our groan is not rooted in natural or worldly things. I believe that in many churches around the world there is an ever increasing cry being expressed through prayer. One day our groaning will give way to glorious praise as He unfolds His purposes in our lives no matter how small or ordinary our lives may seem.
Enter into 2015 with a cry God change me and make me more like you!
Blessing my brothers and sisters.
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