Luke 2:8-15
Christmas is about the birth of the Christ child.  When a baby is born, there is often a birth announcement that goes out.  Friends and family may come together and celebrate with a shower of gifts and food – sometimes even champagne and cigars. But looking at the birth of Jesus, this was not an ordinary child, it was not an ordinary birth, and the announcement and celebration reached from the heavens. 
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The shepherds were abiding in the fields keeping watch over flocks, and then the angel appeared, announcing the birth of Christ the Lord.  The shepherds were the first ones to know about the birth.  The angels did not go to the Herod’s palace with this Royal announcement, nor did they go the priest’s house; they came to shepherds. 

In verse 13 it tells us “and suddenly there was a multitude of the heavenly host, praising God and saying, Glory to God in the Highest…”

I can imagine what it was like for the shepherds, after the angel left making this announcement and the multitude displayed this great celebration.  I can imagine how those shepherds must have felt, those shepherds were excited! I can see the exhilaration, the excitement on these shepherds’ faces.  After the angels went on to heaven, these shepherds said “Let’s go see.  We’ve heard about this, but let’s go see”.

This was no ordinary child, no ordinary birth, no ordinary announcement.  This was the coming of the Christ child/the promised Messiah, and a virgin birth, foretold 600 years before. The Birth Announcement was given by an angel on a hillside, and a heavenly host began the celebration singing “Glory to God in Highest”- this is way beyond champagne and cigars. It was an extra-ordinary Celebration and we are all called to join in.  As it is said, Jesus is the Reason for the Season.  So we set this time aside to celebrate His birthday – not just a day, an entire Season of Celebration.  How fitting it is that the whole world would give gifts, prepare feasts, and sing Him songs of praise.

As we celebrate Christmas, let us not forget WHY we celebrate. It’s Christ my brothers and sisters, it’s because of the birth of Christ.
Merry Christmas!
~J. T.

Luke 2:1-16
In our day and time if you participate in the census you have to complete forms – you’ve got to fill out this form and fill out that one; sometimes people even come to your house to ask you questions for the census.
 
Just before the birth of Jesus, when the decree went out for a census Mary and Joseph had to travel.  They had to go to Bethlehem to be censused or to be taxed.  The trip from Nazareth to Bethlehem was about 65 miles, and you can imagine what it may have been like.  Because Cesar Augustus ordered it, a man and his wife traveled 65 miles on a donkey.  When they got there it was time for her to deliver and she gave birth to her firstborn son.
 
That was one of the loneliest periods in their lives; they were forced to go to this city and all the hotels were full.  The innkeeper offered a stable for a birthing room.  But even in this barn Mary and Joseph took special care, wrapped the child in swaddling clothes, and laid him in a manger.   
 
About that time an announcement was made - the angel of God came to the shepherds that were on the hillside keeping watch over their flocks.  The angel came and announced the birth of the Christ child.
 
And the angel said unto them, Fear not: for, behold, I bring you good tidings of great joy, which shall be to all people. For unto you is born this day in the city of David a Saviour, which is Christ the Lord. And this shall be a sign unto you; Ye shall find the babe wrapped in swaddling clothes, lying in a manger.
Luke 2:10-12

“…..lying in a manger”. That was a sign for the shepherds - being shepherds, they knew where the manger was.  They knew that the manger was not at Herod’s palace.  They knew that the manger was not at Joe Bob’s house around the corner.  This was a sign, and by this sign the shepherds knew exactly where to go.  They knew a manger was a trough, so they knew where to go.
 
We celebrate Christmas because of Jesus’ birth.   All the Christmas presents in the world would mean nothing without the presence of Jesus Christ.  I thank God that He looked down over 42 generations and sent us a Savior in the form of a baby.  He could have allowed Jesus to come at the age of 30 years old and started his 3 year ministry, but He wanted him to come as a baby so we could identify with him.
 
It’s just like this story I heard:
There was this old man sitting by the fire. This old man looked out the window and saw some birds skipping around on the ice.  He noticed they were cold so he went out and tried to get them and bring them to the fire.
 
He tried to pick them up but couldn’t catch them.  Every time he went out the birds would skip a little further.  As the man went back and stood by the fire he looked around - he had a big pillow full of duck feathers and he had a rain coat with a hood on it.   
 
He took the duck feathers and glued them on the rain coat with the hood on it to make himself look like the birds.  As he went out with this on he was able to catch and pick up the little birds and bring them in.
 
That’s what God did.  He wanted to send us a Savior that would look like us, that would talk like us, a Savior that we could relate to – someone that we would identify with.  He could have sent us an angel but he knew we needed a savior. 
 
We thank God that He sent us a Savior, Jesus Christ.
~J.T.

​Isaiah 7:14
Luke 1:26-35
 
It’s a blessing from Almighty God that we can do what we do.  There are a lot of places and a lot of jobs that wouldn’t allow this devotion to take place. 
 
I thank God for Dr. Sorensen.  When he was here at the University as the President I talked with him about a situation and asked him about doing this. He told me “I see nothing wrong with it”. He said as long as it doesn’t interfere with work and it’s done before work time he didn’t see anything wrong with it.   He told me “If anybody has a problem with it tell them to call me” – now we’re talking about the President of the University!  Even when Dr. Witt became President, I stopped him while he was walking around the quad and we talked.  I told him about it and I even invited him to come.  He said he was going to come (he hasn’t gotten here yet) but he knew about this after Sorensen left.  So I just thank God for this door that has opened.
 
When we talk about prophesy in the bible - from Genesis to Revelation we can see men of God prophesying about the various things that were going to transpire.  A prophet was a person of God who was being inspired by God to speak a message for a certain purpose.  Prophesy is a prediction made under divine influence.  Let’s look at how the birth of our Lord and Savior was prophesied by the prophet Isaiah long before his birth.
 
Isaiah 7:14 was written 600 years before Jesus was born. The prophet Isaiah is writing here and he says “Therefore the Lord himself will give you a sign…”  And that sign, as the Isaiah describes, is that a virgin will conceive; in other words a virgin will become pregnant!  We read other things about the Savior in the book of Isaiah, things that will happen so people will know who He is.
 
Just think, for all those years before the New Testament was written, before Christ even came, I’m quite sure that those that studied the Torah were wondering “When will these things take place?”.  By the Word of God we now know that the virgin spoken of is Mary, the mother of our Lord and Savior, Jesus our Christ.
 
Our passage from the book of Luke is familiar to most, but there are those who don’t know the story.  If you don’t know the Christmas story you need to read it.  If you have young children, read it to them and tell them why we celebrate Christmas.  We celebrate Christmas because of the Christ child - that’s why we celebrate Christmas.
 
I pray to God that He will ignite the flame in each one of us as believers.  I pray as we approach this holiday season that He will ignite the flame that lies within us to share the Jesus story, maybe even with somebody that doesn’t know. 
 
Tell somebody about Jesus, about why the Savior was born.
~J. T.

Psalms 24:1
1 Chronicles 29:24
Philippians 4:19
 
There was a young man that had gotten married and he and his wife had bought a house.  He wanted to make the yard look good for his in-laws’ first visit to the house, but his lawn mower was broken.  He borrowed the lawn mower from his neighbor Ben, then cut the grass, edged it, and manicured the yard.  When everything was looking good he was pressed for time so he put the lawn mower in his garage.  His in-laws came and bragged on how well the house and yard looked.  A week later, Ben comes and knocks on his door and says, Hey, man, I thought you would bring my mower back.  The young man apologized and gave him his mower.  So obviously there is that one thing, the mower belongs to Ben.  When we borrow something, the person is expecting it back, and when we’re talking about God, it all belongs to Him.
 
In fact, Psalms 24 tells us “the earth is the Lord’s...”  Everything we see is a product of God - this concrete, these tables, the roof over our heads, the light fixtures – everything was made by God. Look at the brother next to you – he is a product of God. God created man in His image; He breathed into man the breath of life and man became a living soul.  Now a man can try to stake a claim; he can say “I invented that”, but where did the product used to invent it come from? It all comes from God. 
 
“But who am I, and who are my people, that we should be able to give as generously as this? Everything comes from you, and we have given you only what comes from your hand.” 1 Chronicles 29:14 NIV
 
In other words the writer is saying all things come from you, God, it’s yours. We have given to you out of yours.  
 
And since it is His, He has a say in what we do with it. Please hear me this morning, don’t shut your fist up on God. We have to be willing to give. 
 
You could say He gives us the whole apple – He doesn’t break it half and He doesn’t lend it to us – He gives us the whole thing. The only thing He asks us to do is to give a tenth back to Him.  Don’t be one of those that goes to church every Sunday, sits down to hear the word, enjoys the music, enjoys the heat, enjoys the air, enjoys the good running water, and won’t even give.  There are missionaries right now on the mission field that are ministering to people that don’t know Jesus. How are they doing that? They can because people give.  How do you think Billy Graham could go all over the world - how do you think he could do that? He could because people gave.
 
I often say that life should be about making life better for someone else.  If you think about it, if you study the scriptures and study the life of Jesus you find that He did not do anything for Himself.  He didn’t perform a miracle for Himself; He didn’t do anything for Himself.  It was all about making life better for somebody else.  That’s what we should be about - making life better for somebody else.  When we give it helps make life better for somebody else.  And what we give is not even ours, it all belongs to God.
 
Using Brother Poole as an example, Pastor Randy Fuller and their church could not have done with they did for Bishop Evans and his church in Alberta City if people of God did not give. They were able to do that because people were willing to give.  I myself have been blessed by being able to give to those who were impacted by the storm and other situations.  It all belongs to Him and He gives it to us so that we will do the right thing.
 
When we give it is one way of putting God first in our lives, by acknowledging that everything that we have belongs to Him. 
 
But my God shall supply all your need according to his riches in glory by Christ Jesus. Philippians 4:19
 
You don’t have to worry about your needs. God is able to supply all your needs, as the scriptures say, according to His riches and glory.  It may not be easy, but we must be willing to trust God, and trust Him with our wallets!
 
Give to God and watch Him move in an awesome way.

​~J. T.

​Matthew 25:1- 13
As parents we can remember the baby crying and hollering at night.  Sometimes our wives might nudge us to get up and go see about the baby - you look at the clock, it’s midnight!
 
Well, we’re not going to be talking about babies and crying but those of us with families have some experience with that.  But I do want us to look at “A Cry at Midnight”.
 
In this 25th chapter of Matthew Jesus is talking about the Kingdom.  “Then shall the kingdom of heaven be like unto ten virgins”.  We see that five were wise and five were foolish.  Now those that were foolish took their lamps but didn’t take any oil with them, they just went with their lamps or lanterns.   Now they all were going to light the way for the bridegroom that was coming.  We know that there were also five wise virgins; the five wise didn’t just take their lanterns, they had a little jug with them so when the lantern got low they could pour some oil in.  They wanted to make sure they would have enough light to light the way for the bridegroom.  They didn’t know when, but they knew the bridegroom was coming.
 
We see in the scripture the bridegroom tarried (the Message Bible says “he didn’t show up when they expected him to”) so they fell asleep while they waited. Right now my brothers, some of us are slumbering and sleeping but I want to let you know this morning that the bridegroom is coming. We have to make preparations; we’ve got to be ready. We need to make sure that we have oil in our lamps.
 
That oil is the Holy Spirit and we’ve got to make sure that we have Him in us.  If we have the Holy Spirit in us we’re going to shine. I mean there will be a radiance in us that will light the path of the bridegroom.  We don’t want to be like those foolish virgins and only able to shine for a little while. You know how some folks start out, they have it for a little while, and they fool around and they run out.
 
We have to feast on the word of God. We have to continue to read the word of God, continue to pray, and continue to fast.   We must do these things to keep that light burning.  The bridegroom might tarry, but He is coming, He is definitely coming.
 
 “And at midnight there was a cry made…”. At midnight the announcement came, the bridegroom is here, and no further preparations could be made. When the bridegroom came they that were ready went in,  the door shut behind them, and the celebration began.
 
It’s like the story I heard of a banquet.  This couple got there, walked up to the banquet porter and said we are Mr. and Mrs. Smith. We made reservations, in fact we’ve made plans to come for years.  The porter looked down the list but their name did not appear on the list.
 
As they stood there they peeped in and they heard nice music. They saw a table lined up with all kinds of food on it. They saw gold rimmed glasses and tablecloths - I mean it’s just magnificent, I mean out of this world!  The orchestra is playing beautifully, people are in there having a wonderful time, and there they were trying to look, and eager to get in.  They asked the man again saying, I know our names are on this list because we’ve been preparing for this for years, and the porter goes down the list looking, but their names were still were not on there.  They even had to turn around; they couldn’t get in. Why?  Because they weren’t ready.  Now they thought they were ready. They thought they had made reservations, but they hadn’t and they couldn’t get in.  Like the five foolish - they were gone to buy oil when the bridegroom arrived and when they came back the door was shut, they couldn’t get in.  We have to be prepared, we have to be ready when He comes.
 
Just as sure as we live brothers we’re going to have to leave here, and the decisions that we make on this side will determine where we spend our destiny.  We can spend it with the Lord or we can spend it over with the other folks that haven’t accepted Him, the ones that rejected Him, abused Him, talked about Him, ridiculed Him, even crucified Him.  In other words we can spend eternity with the devil. If we want to spend eternity with Jesus, we must make sure that we are ready.
 
We need to watch, we need to be ready because we don’t know when the Son of Man will come. The cry will come when we least expect it, maybe even while we slumber and sleep. There may be a cry at midnight.  There won’t be time to get ready, we have to be ready.  We don’t want to be like the five foolish - we don’t want to be unprepared.  We need to be making ready right now, because the arrival of the bridegroom is at hand; he’s closer today than He was yesterday.
 
Are you prepared for the arrival of the Savior?
~J.T.

John 6:31-35, 47-51
A lot of times when we think about bread we think about biscuits and cornbread, we think about rolls and sometimes people might even refer to money as “bread”.  But we won’t be talking about making biscuits or making cornbread or rolls or anything.   I want to talk about the true bread - that true bread which, as we will find out, came down from heaven.
 
Here Jesus is talking to the Pharisees, and the Pharisees were thinking about the physical bread that the Israelites ate in the wilderness.  They said “Moses gave us bread from heaven” - talking about the manna that they ate in the desert after they left Egypt.
 
But Jesus told them that the bread the Father has given us is the true bread.  He points out to them that the Israelites ate that bread (manna) in the desert and they died.   Jesus lets them know when you eat of this true bread you will live forever.  The bread that Jesus is talking about is the bread that will sustain us for life and for eternity.   
 
Jesus said “For the bread of God is He which came down from heaven”.  Jesus told them they could eat the true bread and never be hungry, and they said, Give us this bread!  Sure – if I don’t have to grind flour and bake dough anymore, give me this bread! But of course Jesus is not talking about literal, physical bread. 
 
This makes me think about the woman at the well - when Jesus told her about water that she could drink and never thirst again, she told Jesus give me this water! Give me this water so I won’t have to come here and draw water anymore. At first, she didn’t understand either.
 
Jesus said to them I am the bread of life.  Jesus himself is the bread, and He tells them He is the true bread of life.  In verse 47 He says “Verily, verily, I say unto you he who believeth on me hath everlasting life”. We can eat of this spiritual bread and spiritually we can live forever.  
 
The reason that we can eat of this bread and live forever is because of the sacrifice of Jesus on the cross. The blood that Jesus shed on the cross made it possible for each one of us to eat of this bread and live forever.
 
We know that every person on this earth is going to have to leave here one of these days. If I want to live forever, I’ve got to be willing to eat of this bread. I’ve got to be willing to repent, believe, and receive.  I’ve got to be willing to do this if I’m expecting to live forever.
 
Makes me think about a little story I heard that there were these young people who were camping.  They went for a hike and one of the young ladies was bitten by a snake.  One of the young men ran back to the camp and opened the snake bite kit and guess what - there was nothing in there. In the story they were able to take this young lady to the hospital and this young lady’s life was saved, but the kit they put so much faith in was empty, and could not save her.  You’ve got a lot of people that’s following religion, looking for an answer in an empty case. But we have the antidote; we have the serum.  We have been bitten by the serpent of sin but we have an antidote and that antidote is Jesus Christ. He is the true Bread, we can partake of Him, and live.
 
Right now the Lord is standing there with those nail pierced hands saying: Look what I’ve done for you. Because of my sacrifice you can come to this fountain and never thirst again, you can come eat and never be hungry again, and you can come and you can live forever.  He made it possible.
 
I’m here to tell you, you can eat today and never be hungry again.  As it says in John 21:12, the Master is saying to you, “Come and dine.”

​~J.T.

2 Corinthians 5:7
Psalms 23:4
John 8:12
 
A lot of us can remember when our children were growing up – as newborns they would just lay in the bed, but then they learned to roll from one side to the other.  Soon they got to the point that they were able to crawl around on the floor, and after that they were able to pull themselves up.  Before long we would begin to hold them by their little arms and help them make those first steps. If you let go, He may fall, but he kept trying until he learned to walk.

Even as Christians we have to learn to walk.  While we are learning to walk the Lord has hold of us, but sometimes we may fall.  

We read in Psalms 23:4 “Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death I will fear no evil, for Thou art with me”. Regardless of where we walk; regardless as to where we go, the Lord is with us. He is there to help us and to sustain us. He helps us to walk on this journey.  He will not leave us nor will he forsake us, even when trouble comes.  

I thought about the story about the footprints in the sand.  You may know the story, this man had a dream that he was walking along the beach one night and he was walking with the Lord.  As he looked back later on he only saw one set of footprints and he asked the Lord “Why did you leave me?”  The Lord said “I didn’t leave you; when there was one set of footprints I was carrying you”.

In our passage from 2 Corinthians we read “For we walk by faith not by sight.”  And what is faith? Hebrews 11:1 says “Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen.”  We walk by faith. It is just like putting one foot in front of the other even when you can’t see in front of you. It’s like getting up in the middle of the night and the power is out – it’s dark.  You don’t know what’s in front of you – you’re just making one step at a time and you believe through faith that you’ll be able to make it to the candle or get to that lantern so you can get some light.

As we learn to walk, even if we stumble, even if we fall, even if we have not committed fully to this journey, the Father stands there.  The Father stands there just like when your baby son or daughter is trying to walk and you stand with open arms and say “Come to Daddy, come to Daddy.”  This little child is trying to make these steps to come to you.  That’s the way the Heavenly Father is.  He’s right there with His arms stretched out saying “Come”.  All we have to do is surrender; submit ourselves to Him.  

We can submit ourselves and come and He’ll be right there, ready, willing to take us in.  He will be that light for us and be that guide even as we walk through those valleys.  Your valley can be different things. Your valley might be a financial crisis, it could be a problem with your children, and it could be problems with your spouse. It doesn’t matter what it is; He will be with you.  He is standing there with His arms stretched out to you, my brothers and sisters.

Surrender to Jesus, and learn to walk, with Him. 
​~J.T.