Christmas Ponderings

In Luke 2:19 we read: "But Mary treasured all these things, pondering them in her heart." When examining the 2nd chapter of the Gospel of Luke, we see that Mary and Joseph have traveled from Nazareth to Bethlehem (a distance of about 80 miles) when Mary is VERY pregnant. That is a trip that could not have been fun for Mary. When they arrive in Bethlehem, there is no place to stay, so they wind up bedding down in a cave-barn behind an inn. There, Mary gave birth to her first son. Not exactly a sanitary setting for childbirth, in the hay next to the donkeys, but that is where God chose to have the Savior of the World born. The first visitors to worship the Christ child were shepherds! Not exactly the top of the social strata, these guys had been visited by an angel declaring the birth of God's Son, and had witnessed a heavenly choir of angels singing glory to God. So, these shepherds set out for Bethlehem and found the Babe just as th angel had said. The shepherds left from there declaring the Good News: that Jesus had come into the world. The, we read the famous line quoted above.

Oh, to be like Mary. Not that I want to give birth, I just want to be used by God for His Purposes. No matter where that leads, no matter how far out of my comfort zone that takes me, no matter what He asks of me. That was the attitude Mary had when she told the angel that she was a bondslave of the Lord. That is the attitude I need to exhibit. No that is the attitude, I need to live out. By submitting my life to the Lordship of Jesus when I was immersed into Christ on August 27, 1985, I promised to be a bondslave of Christ.

I know that it isn't Christmas yet, but I am already in sermon mode for Sunday, December 30th. Yeah, I am preaching on that date, and as I contemplate God's message for the last Sunday of the year, I am contemplating what it means to truly commit to a New Life Resolution. My New Life Resolution is found in Philippians 2"14-15: "14Do all things without grumbling or disputing;

15so that you will prove yourselves to be blameless and innocent, children of God above reproach in the midst of a)crooked and perverse generation, among whom you appear as lights in the world," now THAT is something to ponder.