CHRISTMAS: God's Rescue Plan RealisedНамуна
Imagine yourself standing on a hill outside Bethlehem. There is a group of you who look after flocks of sheep. Some of the flocks may have belonged to the temple. If so, it would have been ironic because your job as a shepherd meant that you didn’t have the opportunity to go to the temple. As such, you were considered to be irreligious.
You were just a shepherd… and nothing ever changed. Life had dealt you a poor hand. The walls of Jerusalem you could see to the north were a visual reminder that you were excluded from God.
And then God organized a heavenly choir to announce the birth of his son to a group of shepherds, people who were especially close to his heart: the excluded ones; the “outside” ones; the humble ones, and the poor.
How does it make you feel, knowing that God reserves front row seats for people like shepherds, or like you?
Prayer
Dear Father,
I love your character. I love that you gave such priority to the bewildered, the humble and the poor. I delight to place my life in the hands of such a wonderful God.
Scripture
About this Plan
The false gods invented by humankind to give definition to a god they knew must exist, were, unsurprisingly, very much like humankind. They had to be cajoled and bribed by acts of devotion to take notice of us. But the one true God has taken the initiative and seeks us out––to rescue us back to himself. And that is the Christmas story.
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