Follow Along Advent Reading, Day 3

The Painted Advent devotional for today is named Heaven’s Loss.

This title made me consider something I’ve never thought of before—how hard it must have been for the angels to watch Jesus go. Jesus coming into the world is a startling event, a heavenly invasion. We could not come to God, so He sent His Son to us.

A Polarizing Event

His birth was also a polarizing event. The night He was born, the only place Joseph could find for the birth was a stable. While the shepherds, three wise men, and possibly Herod recognized Him for who he was, most did not. By worldly standards, He was born into a dubious situation. The village where Mary and Joseph lived believed Jesus to be born out of wedlock, a calamity for sure.

Yet the Bible is clear about Him. John 1:4 tells us “In Him was life and the life was the light of men.” From the very beginning, evil tried to snuff out that life, that light.

New Life

The wonder of it all is that when we invite Jesus into our own lives, He suffuses our very being with new life, His life in the form of the Holy Spirit who leads us and lights our way. When we align our will with His, our life takes on an earthly and heavenly significance and purpose we would never be able to match on our own.

Heaven’s temporary loss was our eternal gain!

How has Jesus been “your gain”?

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