Monday, December 14, 2020
December 14
Sunday, December 13, 2020
Do You Want to Understand Who Jesus Christ Is?
BIBLE MEDITATION
So it was, when the angels had gone away from them into heaven, that the shepherds said to one another, “Let us now go to Bethlehem and see this thing that has come to pass, which the Lord has made known to us.” Luke 2:15
DEVOTIONAL THOUGHT
What is the great need in the world today? Is it information? We’re drowning in a sea of information. If information had been our need, God would have sent an educator. Is it technology? If technology had been the need, God would have sent a scientist. Is it money? Do you think your problems would be solved if you had more money? If money were the need, God would have sent an economist. Is there a need for more leisure? Maybe God should have sent an entertainer.
No. Our great need is salvation. So God sent a Savior.
I’m amazed (and blessed) that He sent the message to humble shepherds. Old Herod, the King, never did quite get it. He never did understand. But humble shepherds understood. Why? Because God has “…hidden these things from the wise and prudent and revealed them to babes…” (Luke 10:21).
ACTION POINT
Do you want to understand who Jesus Christ is today? Then lay your intellectual pride in the dust, come to Him and say, “Lord, reveal this truth to me.” Follow with a song of praise: “O come let us adore Him, Christ the Lord.”
LWF Dr. Adrian Rogers
The Final Reality Is Here
Now the point in what we are saying is this: we have such a high priest, one who is seated at the right hand of the throne of the Majesty in heaven, a minister in the holy places, in the true tent that the Lord set up, not man. . . . They serve a copy and shadow of the heavenly things. For when Moses was about to erect the tent, he was instructed by God, saying, “See that you make everything according to the pattern that was shown you on the mountain.” (Hebrews 8:1–2, 5)
We’ve seen it before. But there’s more. Christmas is the replacement of shadows with the real thing.
Hebrews 8:1–2, 5 is a kind of summary statement. The point is that the one priest who goes between us and God, and makes us right with God, and prays for us to God is not an ordinary, weak, sinful, dying priest as in the Old Testament days. He is the Son of God — strong, sinless, with an indestructible life.
Not only that, he is not ministering in an earthly tabernacle with all its limitations of place and size while getting worn out and being moth-eaten and being soaked and burned and torn and stolen. No, Hebrews 8:2 says that Christ is ministering for us in a “true tent that the Lord set up, not man.” This is not the shadow. It’s the real thing in heaven. This is the reality that cast a shadow on Mount Sinai for Moses to copy.
According to Hebrews 8:1, another great thing about the reality which is greater than the shadow is that our High Priest is seated at the right hand of the Majesty in heaven. No Old Testament priest could ever say that.
Jesus deals directly with God the Father. He has a place of honor beside God. He is loved and respected infinitely by God. He is constantly with God. This is not shadow-reality like curtains and bowls and tables and candles and robes and tassels and sheep and goats and pigeons. This is final, ultimate reality: God and his Son interacting in love and holiness for our eternal salvation.
Ultimate reality is the persons of the Godhead in relationship, dealing with each other concerning how their majesty and holiness and love and justice and goodness and truth shall be manifest in a redeemed people.
John Piper
December 13
Saturday, December 12, 2020
Are You Sinking Deeper?
BIBLE MEDITATION
“And she will bring forth a Son, and you shall call His name Jesus, for He will save His people from their sins.” Matthew 1:21
DEVOTIONAL THOUGHT
One day I drove my car off the hot pavement and out into a grassy area because I knew where there was a persimmon tree. I love persimmons. But I got impossibly stuck in the mud. I got a board and tried to dig myself out. I found a piece of carpet in the woods and put that under the tires. They only sunk deeper.
I prayed, “Lord, I’m in the mud. I’m helpless here. Lord, get me out.” At almost the same time, a man drove by in a four-wheel vehicle. With that mighty truck, he pulled me slowly out of the mud. I was back on solid ground. I was so grateful. I hadn’t known what to do, but God sent someone who did.
That’s so much like salvation. We’re looking for the things of this world and sinking in the mud. We think, “I can get myself out of this.” The more we try to handle it, the deeper we sink. We need someone who sees us and comes to get us out. Jesus is a Savior. He has what it takes to extricate us from the mud we’ve gotten into.
Back at home, I began to wash off my muddy car. That man got me out of the mud, but it was up to me to deal with the mud still on there. When I got saved, I was covered with mud. But since then, I’ve been having Jesus, the Water of Life, clean me up.
ACTION POINT
You can struggle all you want, but you’re only going to sink deeper. Stop the struggle. Surrender to Christ. You don’t have what it takes to get out unless someone takes you out. That one is Jesus. His name is Wonderful. He is the Mighty God, Everlasting Father, and Prince of Peace.
LWF Dr. Adrian Rogers
Replacing the Shadows
Now the point in what we are saying is this: we have such a high priest, one who is seated at the right hand of the throne of the Majesty in heaven, a minister in the holy places, in the true tent that the Lord set up, not man. (Hebrews 8:1–2)
The point of the book of Hebrews is that Jesus Christ, God’s Son, has not just come to fit into the earthly system of priestly ministry as the best and final human priest, but he has come to fulfill and put an end to that system, and to orient all our attention on himself, ministering for us first on Calvary as our final Sacrifice and then in heaven as our final Priest.
The Old Testament tabernacle and priests and sacrifices were shadows. Now the reality has come, and the shadows pass away.
Here’s an Advent illustration for kids — and those of us who used to be kids and remember what it was like. Suppose you and your mom get separated in the grocery store, and you start to get scared and panic and don’t know which way to go, and you run to the end of an aisle, and just before you start to cry, you see a shadow on the floor at the end of the aisle that looks just like your mom. It makes you really hopeful. But which is better? The hopefulness of seeing the shadow, or having your mom step around the corner and it’s really her?
That’s the way it is when Jesus comes to be our High Priest. That’s what Christmas is. Christmas is the replacement of shadows with the real thing: Mom stepping around the corner of the aisle, and all the relief and joy that gives to a little child.
John Piper