I have spent considerable hours reading and rereading the account of Jesus’ birth, crucifixion and resurrection in the four gospels of Matthew, Mark, Luke and John. It has been fascinating. Four parallel accounts. Each differs without contradiction in the details because of who they were writing to and their backgrounds, but the most beautiful part of all is the main theme remains true to all the prophecy in the Old Testament leading up to these days. Even deeper is God’s desire to have relationship with us. He truly wants us to turn to Him and seek Him in all our ways. May we face this new year ahead focused on knowing Him like we never have before. Thank you for allowing me to share with you. Merry Christmas. Janet
Holy imagination.
Not the Batman kind – the holy – whispered in worship of the sacred presence of God as He came down to take away that empty place in us and fill it with Him.
He came down.
To the empty manger.
He was lifted up.
He allowed Himself to be lifted up on that cross. He allowed loving hands to take Him off that cross, leaving an empty reminder of the horror that history wrote of there – to place Him in the empty tomb.
No amount of my imagination can comprehend what that day was like. At some point their tears exhausted, the day must have felt like it would never end. They had waited with Jesus as He breathed His last breath there on the cross that afternoon on the day meant to destroy Him.
I can hear their weeping.
And then silence, empty of words, no tears left to cry and heavy with grief as they carried the body of the One they had believed.
How could they speak? What was there to say?
Did they remember Him telling them He would be in the grave for three days but would return just as He had promised? He did return to fill them and all of us with a love unparalleled in any other love story ever told.
His promises never fail!
Did you hear that? The tomb could not hold Him, the son of God!
And just like that – the tomb was empty. The emptiness – evidence of God’s word fulfilled.
This message may land in each of your hearts differently. Yet, my prayer is that you give it room in that empty space you pull out of storage and let Jesus permanently move in. God has shown us over and over again that He has a divine purpose for empty. This is what your heart has been missing. Let Him have yours today – yes – all the holes and shards of broken – He wants them all.
1 John 4:9 In this the love of God was made manifest among us, that God sent his only Son into the world, so that we might live through him.
Merry Christmas to each of you. May the Lord richly bless you in the coming new year with a new found relationship with Him.
“Lord, we praise You for the ways we can continually learn new things about You. Open our eyes and our ears to see and hear You in ways we never have before. Keep that desire alive in our hearts. We praise You. Forgive us when we doubt and when we forget Your love. In Jesus’ precious, holy name. Amen.”