Christmas is for everyone!
God’s great Gift is given to each of us
and to all of us.
Jesus Christ is the Savior of our entire race—
not just our nation or our religion.
Culture doesn’t matter.
Education doesn’t matter.
Age doesn’t matter.
Money doesn’t matter.
Every human being can have a
rich, full, satisfying life,
now and forever,
by simply trusting Jesus Christ.
God wants everyone to know!
Listen and sing:
Hymn: Christ the Lord Is with Us!
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JESUS THE LIGHT Devotional Tapestry
Devotional Tapestries are short recordings designed to draw your heart and mind to the Living God. Each includes a devotional reading over instrumental music, leading into a hymn.
Listen to JESUS THE LIGHT Devotional Tapestry.
from the devotional book, PICTURES OF GOD
Isaiah 8:19 – 9:7
Isaiah 8:19-22 describes the fate of those who ignore God. When times get tough and they face the ultimate issues of life, they will know only distress, despair, and darkness.
But what a contrast in the verses that follow, Isaiah 9:1-5! Isaiah strains to adequately communicate wonderful, unbelievable blessings that will come to the neediest of God’s people – blessings that are far beyond their experience and imagination. These blessings will be like:
What will bring these indescribable, unimaginable blessings? The birth of a child – a child who will become a great, eternal, magnificent, and righteous King.
In the Bible, names often signify who a person truly is – that person’s character, purpose, and importance. A name is more than a label for someone. It is the person’s identity. And if names could describe this magnificent King, what would His names be?
He will rule forever with perfect justice and righteousness. He and His decisions will always be just and right as God Himself is just and right. The peace, harmony, and complete well-being of His Kingdom will grow and grow forever.
How can we be sure that these incredible promises will actually be fulfilled? Because the burning, unquenchable love of the Unchanging God, I AM WHO I AM, Lord of All the Heavenly Armies, guarantees it!
Listen and sing:
Hymn: Isaiah 9
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Consider the people nearest to Jesus during His life on earth:
His mother,
His father,
His disciples.
Those closest to Him shared His sufferings.
In their own degree, they bore what Jesus bore.
Their relationship with that one man cost them everything.
For them, the mysteries of the transcendent God weren’t abstract and far away.
They witnessed those mysteries close up.
They tasted them.
They journeyed through them.
They wrestled with them daily –
the light, the darkness,
the privilege, the pain,
the waiting, the questions, the wrenching self-sacrifice.
For each, it started with a personal call.
They sensed it was the call of the Living God,
and that decided their response,
though they couldn’t see the end from the beginning.
Mary answered the angel,
“I am the Lord’s servant…May your word to me be fulfilled” (Luke 1:38, NIV).
Joseph obeyed a dream and took a pregnant woman as his fiancé.
The disciples, average working men with deep local connections,
dropped everything familiar and
followed a homeless, itinerant teacher.
The price was real,
but the result was life rich beyond imagination,
permeated with truth and peace,
love and fruitfulness,
eternal meaning and undying glory.
That is still the price and the reward for all who share in Christ.
Listen and sing:
Hymn: Partners in the Mystery
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This Christmas, Father, help me to be more loving.
Reshape me by the Spirit of Christ.
Make me more like You.
Add or subtract from me.
Edit and revise me as You see fit.
Tune me up, Lord.
Challenge me,
teach me,
inspire me by Your example.
I am listening, Father.
Lead, and I will follow.
Open my eyes to the needs all around me.
Help me to see You standing among us,
eager to supply each need from Your great abundance.
This Christmas,
make me as humble as the newborn Christ.
Keep me as patient as You, my Father,
and as faithful as Your unfailing promises.
Help me to share the good news about Jesus
as naturally and eagerly as the shepherds.
With the magi, may I bow in worship and
offer You only my very best.
Bring your love to life, O kind, compassionate Father.
Make it flesh and blood in me.
Listen and sing:
Hymn: Christmas Love
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During Christmas, Jesus is the Gift of the Father.
He is all the fullness of God embodied in a human infant.
A child will be born to us, a son will be given to us…
And His name will be called
Wonderful Counselor,
Mighty God,
Eternal Father,
Prince of Peace.
(Isaiah 9:6, NASB)
Christmas is the unveiling of
God’s greatest promise,
His greatest miracle,
His greatest gift:
His own incarnation.
All He is,
all His purity and perfection,
all His transcendent beauty,
became a human being.
The limitless God became the poorest, most helpless of all human creatures:
the newborn infant of an unmarried peasant girl.
Look! Here is the gift of Christmas.
Here is the wonder of Christmas.
Here are all the most precious treasures,
poured out on all who will receive them.
Here are holiness, wisdom, and boundless joy,
wholeness, harmony, and complete well-being.
Here are unity and individuality,
eternal belonging and a glorious destiny.
During Christmas, receive
the Gift of the Father,
the life of the Father, and
the love of the Father.
Receive Jesus Christ by simple faith.
Listen and sing:
Hymn: Love Has Come!
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During Advent, Jesus is the Promise of the Father.
During Christmas, He is the Gift of the Father. He is all the fullness of God embodied in a human infant.
During Epiphany, Jesus is the Light of the Father, drawing all people to Himself.
During Lent, He is the Father’s Servant, leading us on the path of obedience and trust.
During Holy Week, Jesus is the Love of the Father, humbly submitting to death on the cross.
During Easter, He is the Life of the Father, overcoming death and sin forever.
On Ascension Day, Jesus is at the Father’s right hand, reigning as Sovereign Lord and King.
On Pentecost, He pours out the Promise of the Father, baptizing every believer in the Holy Spirit of God.
During Ordinary Time, Jesus helps us order our lives by His teaching and example. He gives us His Spirit as a down-payment while we eagerly await His promised Advent.
Brothers and sisters, let’s constantly celebrate all God has done for us in Jesus Christ! Let’s make this year a Christ-centered year.
[Moses said:] “The LORD your God will raise up for you a prophet like me from among your own brothers. You must listen to him.
“The LORD said to me:…’I will raise up for them a prophet like you from among their brothers; I will put my words in his mouth, and he will tell them everything I command him. If anyone does not listen to my words that the prophet speaks in my name, I myself will call him to account.’” (Deuteronomy 18:15, 17-19, NIV)
In Moses’ day, the nations around Israel used all kinds of magic and superstitious practices to learn the will of the gods. God forbade such sorcery in Israel. He chose to make His will known through His prophets. And unlike the mysterious messages of pagan soothsayers and mediums, God’s words would be clear and understandable.
In the passage above, God is promising to raise up a succession of prophets who would faithfully speak His will to His people. We read the revelations of many of those prophets in our Old Testament. But when the prophets quit coming, the hopes aroused by Deuteronomy 18 began to focus on one Prophet, One who would come and fully reveal all God’s will for His people: Messiah Himself.
During Jesus’ earthly ministry, many saw Him as this promised Prophet:
Philip found Nathanael and said to him, “We have found Him of whom Moses in the Law and also the Prophets wrote—Jesus of Nazareth, the son of Joseph.” (John 1:45, NASB)
When the people saw the sign which [Jesus] had performed (the feeding of the five thousand), they said, “This is truly the Prophet who is to come into the world.” (John 6:14, NASB)
Some of the people therefore, when they heard [Jesus’] words, were saying, “This certainly is the Prophet.” (John 7:40, NASB)
Peter, in speaking to the Jews about the One they had crucified, said:
“Now, brothers, I know that you acted in ignorance, as did your leaders. But this is how God fulfilled what he had foretold through all the prophets, saying that his Christ would suffer…For Moses said, ‘The Lord your God will raise up for you a prophet like me from among your own people; you must listen to everything he tells you…’ Indeed, all the prophets from Samuel on, as many as have spoken, have foretold these days.” (Acts 3:17-18, 22, 24, NIV)
Jesus told those questioning His authority,
“If you believed Moses, you would believe Me, for he wrote about Me.” (John 5:46, NASB)
And on the evening after His resurrection, Jesus conversed with the two disciples on the road to Emmaus, and “beginning with Moses and with all the prophets, He explained to them the things concerning Himself in all the Scriptures” (Luke 24:27, NASB).
As the centuries progressed, God’s prophets were distilled into God’s Prophet, and God’s words became God’s Word, Jesus Christ.
In the past God spoke to our forefathers through the prophets at many times and in various ways, but in these last days he has spoken to us by his Son, whom He appointed heir of all things, and through whom he made the universe. The Son is the radiance of God’s glory and the exact representation of his being, sustaining all things by his powerful word. (Hebrews 1:1-3, NIV)
Father,
Your power, Your wisdom, and Your love
have said all they have to say
in Jesus Christ.
Help me to listen.
Listen…and sing if you want:
Hymn: The Word of God Is Jesus Christ
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Having been warned in a dream not to go back to Herod, [the Magi] returned to their country by another route.
When they had gone, an angel of the Lord appeared to Joseph in a dream. “Get up,” he said, “take the child and his mother and escape to Egypt. Stay there until I tell you, for Herod is going to search for the child to kill him.”
So he got up, took the child and his mother during the night and left for Egypt, where he stayed until the death of Herod. And so was fulfilled what the Lord had said through the prophet: “Out of Egypt I called my son.”
When Herod realized that he had been outwitted by the Magi, he was furious, and he gave orders to kill all the boys in Bethlehem and its vicinity who were two years old and under, in accordance with the time he had learned from the Magi. Then what was said through the prophet Jeremiah was fulfilled:
“A voice is heard in Ramah,
weeping and great mourning,
Rachel weeping for her children
and refusing to be comforted,
because they are no more.”
(Matthew 2:12-18, NIV)
Jesus was born as He would die.
He would die as He was born.
The birth and death of the Light of the World
were shrouded in darkness.
His trusted companions were the lowly and powerless.
Jealous leaders pursued Him with murderous hearts
while humble women gently cared for His needs.
His helpless body was wrapped in cloth and laid in borrowed quarters.
Coming and going from this world,
He was immersed in suffering, shame, and desperate circumstances.
Jesus is a portrait of God our Father,
framed with tenderness, mercy, and sacrificial love.
Father, I look at the life of your Son, and
I see the full extent of Your love
etched on every page.
Throughout His birth, His life, and His death,
He drank our shame and suffering full strength.
Father, I bow in silence.
How can I respond to You?
How can I live my love for You?
Listen…and sing if you want:
Hymn: One with Us
Recording
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