Dave’s Monday Blast – December 23, 2019
Merry Christmas to you and yours!
The first words we hear our Creator speak are recorded in Genesis 1: 3: “And God said, ‘Let there be light.” The next verse says, “And God saw that the light was good.” God loves light! God designed humankind to live in the light. Light is God’s chosen tool to remove us from darkness. Darkness must be defined as that which is without God. Light is defined as that which has God in it.
The Genesis account informs us that humankind was created with the ability to choose between living in the darkness or living in the light; darkness remains in our world. (We do not always choose well.) The Good News is that our Heavenly Father had an enduring plan to rescue His special creation from the dark…a baby born in a stable (Matthew 4:16).
Pastor Jim Denison comments: “It is interesting that Jesus chose to be born in a “secular” stable rather than a religious shrine. He chose for His first worshipers field hands who were ritually unclean and unwelcome at the Temple or synagogue. The first religious leaders who met him were pagans from what we call Iran today.
Jesus chose to make his home in “Galilee of the Gentiles” (Matthew 4:15). Neither he nor any of his apostles had rabbinic training. None would be “ordained” as we know the term today. In other words, God intends his kingdom to extend into every corner of the culture, not the parts we call “spiritual.” Here we discover a subtle but deadly temptation of the enemy: If he cannot lead us to reject all spiritually, he will tempt us to confine it to a day, a morning habit, a select group. And to call ourselves good because we are better than some.” Satan wants to keep us stumbling in the dark!
As “children of light” (Ephesians 5:8 – 17) our very INTENTIONAL mission is to shine light into the darkness. Our culture demands that we must keep our religious beliefs to ourselves, but if our culture saw the God of the universe as He truly is, the fallacy of such demands would be transparent. Theologian Abraham Kuyper: “There is not a square inch in the whole domain of human existence over which Christ, who is Sovereign over all, does not cry: ‘Mine!'”
Our Heavenly Father is the King of the universe. His reign is relevant to every dimension of life and culture. Luke 2:10 informs that the angels of Christmas announced “good news of great joy that will be for all people… the savior was born.” Men no longer need to stumble in the dark!
