Welcome back to Day 5 of Only ByPrayer’s thoughts on the Painted Advent devotional. Thanks for joining us.

Sometimes I am tempted to gloss over Joseph’s part in the Christmas story and focus on others. But that means I’m missing such an important part of Jesus’ earthly life: His father.

Joseph was a man of amazing integrity. If you go back and read Matthew 1, we see that Joseph had been planning to quietly divorce Mary upon receiving the devastating news that she was pregnant. That all changes when an angel visits him in a dream and validates Mary’s story.

Joseph Is the Man

Joseph never looks back. God knew that Mary would need a husband of strong character to stand by her. Joseph is the man. He marries Mary and raises Jesus as His own. Surely they were the subject of gossip. But Joseph stands as an immoveable barrier of protection between his family and society.

Three more times in this chapter we read (who knows how many times in their lives?) God uses Joseph as the protector of his family by warning him in dreams of danger to Jesus’ life on the part of Herod or his son Archelaus. Each time Joseph heeds the warning and whisks his family away to safety.

Joseph’s sense of alertness is so heightened that in verse 22 it seems he senses danger before he was even warned.

He is the epitome of what a man, husband, and father should be. Men need to be protectors of their wives and children. We live in a society where a man’s role is often belittled or worse yet deemed unnecessary. That is a lie that is doing unchecked damage to our families. Women need to let men be men and fulfill the role GOD gave them to fulfill without trying to manage them and make them more “like us.”

There have been times in my life where my husband took an action to protect our family that I didn’t like because it would “make waves” with others. I was wrong. When a man is being led by God and acts to protect he family, he is doing what God created him to do.

Men of Character Are a Blessing

Despite what society preaches, we need to celebrate the strong men in our lives and support them.  Like Joseph, they are a blessing from God.

What do you think? Leave your thoughts below.

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Welcome back to Day 4 of our discussion about the Painted Advent devotional from the Bible app. Today’s painting is called Good News.

You never know when it will happen.

You’re going about your daily work all things appearing normal when BAM! A chorus of angels lights up the night sky and scares you to death! At least that’s what happened to the shepherds in the Christmas story. What had been an ordinary day for them turned into an extraordinary one in a moment’s notice.

I wonder if the shepherds noticed anything different that evening.

I imagine all of heaven on the brink of a holy explosion—the angels barely containing their excitement. Was the night sky especially bright? Maybe a shooting star or two streaking across the sky in anticipation of what was about to happen? Or perhaps the air was charged with electricity, the impending fulfillment of ancient prophecy.

All we know is that one minute all was normal and the next it was not—the world forever changed.

The same can be true for us.

Within each day lies the potential for a Richter-scale change, for the glory of God to burst upon our everydayness with a power that takes our breath away.

What will that look like? It could be an angelic visitation (those things still happen today). But it could also be an invisible but just as mighty display of God’s power as evidenced by a changed heart, salvation for a loved one, a healed relationship, a new job, a sick person made well, a prodigal come home.

As Christ-followers, each day we get to live in the hope and shadows of miracles.

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What do you think about living in holy expectancy? Share your thoughts below.

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Watch for Him

To help you continue to watch for Jesus this Christmas season, please read the Scriptures below. Consider how Zachhaeus watched for Jesus. What can you learn from Zacchaeus? How can you watch for Jesus today? Please comment on what you learned in the Comment section below. Remember,  be a doer of His Word this Christmas season!

Jesus Comes to Zacchaeus’ House

4 So he ran ahead and climbed up into a sycamore tree to see Him, for He was going to pass that way. 5 And when Jesus came to the place, He looked up and saw him,  and said to him, “Zacchaeus, make haste and come down, for today I must stay at your house.”

How can you watch for Jesus today?

Be a doer of His Word!

Merry Christmas

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Copyright 2017

“Blue Letter Bible – Luk 19: Gospel of Luke 19 (Blue Letter Bible: NKJV – New King James Version).” Blue Letter Bible. Web. 6 Dec, 2015. <http://www.blueletterbible.orghttps://www.blueletterbible.org/nkjv/luk/19/1/p1/s_992001>.

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Welcome back to Day 2 of the Painted Advent devotional reading with the Bible app. Here is Day 1 if you missed it and want to catch up.

On to Day 2!

Day 2 Luke 1:39-80

My thoughts: I love how God brings together Mary and Elizabeth. I can imagine they were both reeling a bit from their secrets. How they would have been a support to each other during this time:

• Mary was figuring out how to handle her pregnancy in a time and culture when an unplanned pregnancy meant being ostracized from society. She also knew that there was a very real possibility that her fiancee Joseph would have every right to divorce her.
• On the other hand, Elizabeth was probably a bit stunned by her own late-in-life pregnancy, especially since she had been childless for her entire marriage.

I can imagine how these two must have enjoyed their months together, praying and dreaming and planning about their babies.

Waiting on God

The other thing that stands out to me from his passage is that even though God sometimes seems to be silent in our lives, He uses this quiet waiting time to birth His plan.

Four hundred years had passed from the end of the Old Testament to the beginning of the New Testament. During these years, God was completely quiet. No communication between God and the prophets. No messages for Israel.

Meanwhile, the culture had been changing. Greek and Roman influences were foisted upon the Jews. But during this time of God’s silence, He was orchestrating His ultimate plan of the birth of His Son.

Finally, the book of Luke begins with a flurry of holy activity — the visits of angels, the return of prophecy (after that quiet 400 years!), and the births of two long-prophesied babies.

How Does This Apply to Us?

We can use this as encouragement in our own lives. When we have been praying and waiting and God seems silent, we need to remember that plans take time. God’s time. During the waiting we continue to pray, to work, to seek, to watch — for our own flurry of holy activity.

Let me know your thoughts as you walk through this season of Advent.

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Shopping, wrapping, baking. Cooking, traveling, caroling. Although Christmas is one of the busiest times of the year, I try to make it a priority to prepare my heart during the Advent season. This year in my search for an Advent devotional, I happened upon a free seven-day devotional on the Bible app that is based upon the paintings of artist Ron Dicianni called A Painted Advent.

I’ve been enjoying this beautiful devotional, and each day as I read, I record my thoughts about that day’s topic. I thought it might be interesting to share my writings each day. If you are also reading A Painted Advent, I’d love if you could add your thoughts in the comment section.

If you’d like, you can make reading your devotion a cozy time. Try lighting a beeswax candle, playing soft Christmas music in the background, or adding whatever you’d like to make it special. Please share your ideas below.

Let’s get started.

Day 1 Thoughts from Luke 1:1-38

Question: What can I learn from Luke 1?

Answer: With God I can expect the unexpected!

How amazing that the two women who bore the most important children in the Christmas story  (John the Baptist and Jesus) were beyond the ability to be pregnant.

Elizabeth was an old woman beyond childbearing years and had been barren all her married life. Mary was an unmarried virgin.

Yet God didn’t let these realities stop Him. He chose these two not for their “fitness” for the job, but because of the fitness of their hearts. 

Luke 1:6 tells us that both Zacharias and Elizabeth “were righteous before God, walking in all the commandments and ordinances of the Lord, blameless.” Gabriel also tells Zacharias in verse 13 that “your prayer is heard.”

And in Luke 1:28 the angel Gabriel tells Mary “Rejoice, highly favored one, the Lord is with you; blessed are you among women.” When Mary became frightened in verse 30, he told her not to be afraid for “she has found favor with God.”

How this should give us hope in our own lives! God can do anything as He sees fit, and He saw fit to use an old woman and a virgin as moms in the Christmas story. Because of this, we too can expect the unexpected because God is always on the look for willing people ready to be used by Him. As Gabriel explained to Mary in verse 36, “For with God nothing will be impossible.”

Two words are so important there: with God. With God changes everything.

When we charge ahead in our own strength, we will miss the blessing God has for others and ourselves.

But when we make with God the basis of our lives, dreams, and plans, we greatly expand the effectiveness, the possibilities, the potential harvest because we open ourselves up to His power.

With God opens up the possibility of expecting the unexpected.

What do you think? Share your thoughts below.

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Christmas To Do-ers List

Day 2: Make Room for Him

She wrapped him in cloths and placed him in a manger, because there was no room for them in the inn. Luke 2:7

No Room

Can you imagine being Mary perched on a donkey, already in the pangs of labor, as they entered the city of Bethlehem? I am sure she was hoping for a quiet place, a haven to give birth to her son. But that’s not what greeted her. A city teeming with people and noise, with nary a haven in sight.

Or perhaps you identify more with Joseph, with the full responsibility of Mary and the imminent birth on his shoulders. Every inn was packed; every door he desperately knocked on slammed in his face. No room.

Make Room

As we consider Mary and Joseph’s plight that night, one of the most important lessons we can take from this story is to make room for the Savior in our lives.  In the whole city, one innkeeper took pity on their plight and offered what he had for their use.

What about us? Do we make room for the Word Made Flesh in our lives? John 8:37 tells the sad story of those who have no room for the word. But when we make room for Jesus, when we give Him what we have, He changes everything. The more room we give Him in our lives, the more changes He makes. And the more He uses what we give Him.

While it’s a good start, Jesus is asking for more than just Sunday morning. We need to make room in our schedules, in our homes, in our leisure time, in our work, in our hearts.  

Rather than being a once-a-week commitment, Jesus wants to be our everyday priority.

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When we pray about our schedules, Jesus can multiply our time, help us to make the right connections and opportunities. When we invite Him into our families, He can soften and quicken the hearts of ourselves and our loved ones to bring about necessary change. When we pray about our leisure time activities and hobbies, He can spark creativity and opportunities we may not  have had otherwise. When we give Him our work, He can help us weather difficulties and inspire us with new ideas. When we step out in ministry, he can bless our five loaves and two fish into much more than we imagine. Making room for Him is the key to change in our own lives.

Action Points:

Determine how you will make room for Jesus this Advent.

1. What does your devotion time look like? Are you meeting with Jesus in the morning or evening? If not, when can you make time for Him?
2. Is there an area of your life that you have put up the “no vacancy” sign at, that you haven’t yet yielded control of to Jesus?
3. Can you make room for an extended time of prayer once during Advent? Perhaps as a mini-retreat in your own home or somewhere else?
4. Is there a step of ministry God is asking you to take for Him?

Please share any ideas of how you will make room for Jesus this season in the comment section below and enjoy the music selection for today: Do You Have Room?, by Shawna Edwards.

Let’s be To Do-ers of His word this Christmas season by making room!

Previous Posts:

Day 1: Believe Him

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