To Follow and Remember

  Day 24: Jesus Christ Luke 1:26- Gabriel: “Greetings, O favored one, the Lord is with you!”… “Do not be afraid, Mary, for you have found favor with God. And behold, you will conceive in your womb and bear a son, and you shall call his name Jesus. He will be great and will be called the Son of the Most High. And the Lord God will give to him the throne of his father David, and he will reign over the house of Jacob forever, and of his kingdom there will be no end.” Luke 2:21 And at the end of eight days, when he was circumcised, he was called Jesus, the name give by the angel before he was conceived in the womb.  God didn’t send Jesus to earth with hopes it would work out. Even more so, Jesus wasn’t born on earth and evolve into God’s call. There was a plan and a purpose from the beginning. The same is true for your life, by the way. And knowing this Jesus will help empower us as we go.  1 Corinthians 15:1 Now I would remind you, brothers, of the gospel I preached to you, whi

  Day 23: God with us Luke 2:1-20 In those days a decree went out from Caesar Augustus that all the world should be registered. This was the first registration when Quirinius was governor of Syria. And all went to be registered, each to his own town. And Joseph also went up from Galilee, from the town of Nazareth to Judea, to the city of David, which is called Bethlehem, because he was of the house and lineage of David, to be registered with Mary, his betrothed, who was with child. And while they were there, the time came for her to give birth. And she gave birth to her firstborn son and wrapped him in swaddling clothes and laid him in a manger, because there was not place for them in the inn. And in the same region there were shepherds out in the field, keeping watch over their flock by night. And an angel of the Lord appeared to them, and the glory of the Lord shone around them, and they were filled with great fear. And the angel said to them, “Fear not, for behold, I bring you

  Day 22: Ancient of Days The name Ancient of Days is found 4 times in the Old Testament. Three of those are in the book of Daniel. Y’all know about Daniel. He was carried off as a teenager as a captive foreign to a  pagan nation and he chose to remember who He was and who His God was. He did not conform to the Babylonian culture or religion. God blessed Daniel amazingly and allowed him to serve under several kings. He was a prophet, a dream interpreter, he prayed and worshiped, and God protected him and blessed him with knowledge and wisdom over and over again. He prophesied a lot about what was to come. In Daniel 7, he is prophesying about 4 kingdoms that will take over the earth, 3 happened very quickly but one is still to come. But throughout all those take-overs, there is One who really stays on the throne. All the power of this world is limited.  There is a reason we are drawn to movies like the Marvel movies. There actually is always a tension to be the most powerful in the

  Day 21: Savior John 4:42 They said to the woman (as in the woman at the well), “It is no longer because of what you said that we believe, for we have heard for ourselves, and we know that this is indeed the Savior of the world.” We looked at this glorious story where Jesus offers a gift of the unseen world- living water- and her beautiful response back on the day we looked at Jesus as Messiah. So Im not going to go back there.  Listen to what the people are saying: they listened to her testimony, it made an impact on their life so they went and listened for themselves. Now let’s consider who we are listening to tell us about Jesus. We have some tremendous teachers in our lives, not just here in Dublin, but bc of this great age we are living in, we have teachers from all over. I think the absolute best teachers leave an impression on us that make us want to do this: go and listen more for ourselves. The best teachers point us back to the word. I also hope we are this in others

  Day 20: Shiloh Genesis 49:10 The scepter shall not depart from Judah, nor the ruler’s staff from between his feet,  until tribute comes to him; and to him shall be the obedience of the peoples.  Alrighty, lots going on here. First of all, this is just before Jacob is about to die. He calls his sons together and speaks prophecies over all their lives. Some are good, some are harsh.  Remember that family is super, crazy important to God. He chose the family to pass his story along. He created Adam from dust and made Eve from one of Adams ribs but after that, he carried his turn along in families. But he didn’t just tell the story of Himself through fathers and mothers passing along the story to their children, he kept the prophecy in his family too. So much so that when we ready the lineage in the beginning of the New Testament in Matthew, we can pick out names and we know how they fit in. That family was not perfect, and neither is their story, it is not squeaky clean and neit

  Day 19: Lily of the Valley Song of Solomon 2:1 I am a rose of Shanon,  A lily of the valleys.  This is the same verse we looked at for Rose of Sharon. Why would there be 2 flowers that point to Jesus? Remember the Rose of Sharon was perfect, the best and highest flower. We looked at Jesus being like the groom to the bride, his church. We looked at him being perfect and highest for us.  Let’s look at lily of the valley. Here are 5 things that a gardener says about Lilies and how they point us to the character of Christ and how these qualities are passed on to us by his death and resurrection as well.  1. Lilies are very strongly sweet smelling. What does the Bible talk about having a smell? Our prayers. In the Old Testament Temple, remember there is a place where incense are burned. Incense are similar to candles, you light them and the smoke and scent rises from it. Part of the duties of the priest were to light the incense on behalf of the people. This is actually what Zec