What Do We Give to Jesus?

If you have been following this blog recently you know that I've been sharing Christmas hymns and songs in my posts. Today I'll do the same, but not a hymn or song telling actual details of that amazing time when Jesus was born. Instead I'll share the "Little Drummer Boy" song, even though no such boy is ever mentioned in the Bible.

The birth of Jesus was extraordinary. Angels foretold and then proclaimed the event when it took place. Wise men were led by a star from the east, bearing expensive gifts to honor the one who they understood to be the new king of the Jews.

Jesus, the Son of God, had been born as a baby so that He could grow up, teach great things, demonstrate His diety in many ways, and then die on the Cross as a sacrifice to atone for our sins. He did what we could not do for ourselves. He is worthy of our thankfulness. He is worthy of anything we can do for Him to show our appreciation.

I guess that's why I mist up when I hear the Little Drummer Boy song. The little boy knew he was poor. He had no gift to give. But he wanted to do something. So he did what he could, he played his drum for the baby Jesus.

Jesus deserves whatever good thing we can do for Him. Maybe we can only do a little. Maybe we can do a lot. But we should not hold back. We should do whatever we can do.

But how can we do things for Jesus, now that He has resurrected from the dead and ascended back to Heaven. You'll find the answer to that question in a teaching Jesus gave that is recorded in Matthew 25:
"And the King will answer them, 'Truly, I say to you, as you did it to one of the least of these my brothers, you did it to me.'" Mat 25:40 ESV

What are we giving to Jesus today? What are we giving and doing for those He calls His brothers? Is it our best? Let's think about it as we celebrate His birth, and enjoy the songs we sing this time of year.

Below is a video of the song about an imaginary boy who did what he could for Jesus. I appreicate Katherine K. Davis, Henry Onorati and Harry Simeone for having composed the words and music for The Little Drummer Boy in 1958.It reminds me that I need to do what I am able to do for Jesus. I need to give Him the best I can give Him.

What Child Is This?

When Jesus was born, Mary and Joseph were away from home. The town they were in at the time was Bethlehem, and it was crowded. So when Mary gave birth to Jesus, the best they could do for Him was lie him in a manger, an animal feeding trough.

Why was Jesus born in such humble circumstances? Perhaps one reason was because God wanted shepherds to be His first visitors. After all, Jesus was the Lamb of God to take away the sins of the world. He was also the Good Shepherd.

Shepherds were not considered high class respected members of society. They would not have been welcome in a fine home if they showed up in the middle of night to see a new born baby. But God wanted shepherds to be among the first to see Him come in the flesh as a baby. Therefore He saw to it that He would be in a very humble setting where shepherds could come, see, and be amazed that what the angel had told them was indeed true.

God knows what He is doing. He always has, and always will do what is best according to His plan and purpose. We need to pay more attention to Him, and what Scripture tells us about Him. And since He is worthy to be praised, it is a good thing to sing about Him.

Some Came to Worship Him -- Some Were Troubled

Now after Jesus was born in Bethlehem of Judea in the days of Herod the king, behold, wise men from the east came to Jerusalem, saying, "Where is he who has been born king of the Jews? For we saw his star when it rose and have come to worship him."  When Herod the king heard this, he was troubled, and all Jerusalem with him;  Matt 2:1-2 ESV

In a recent post on this blog I wrote about the shepherds who were told by an angel about the birth of Jesus. Those shepherds then went into Bethlehem and found the baby in a manger, just as the angel had said.

The shepherds weren't the only ones who came to know that Jesus had been born and was no ordinary baby. There were men from the east who had seen a certain star rise in the sky and somehow knew that it was related to the birth of the king of the Jews. They came a great distance to worship him. But when they arrived in Jerusalem, where it would be reasonable for them to expect a new born king of the Jews would be, nobody there had news of such a royal birth.

We don't know a lot about those men from the east, but they did come with the right attitude. They came to worship, to honor this new king. When they couldn't find him on their own they asked the people in Jerusalem, "Where is he who has been born king of the Jews?" But no one in the city had even heard that such a king had just recently been born.

When King Herod heard that men from the east were looking for a newly born king, he was troubled. He knew he was not of the line of David, and had no real right to be on the throne. If there was a true royal descendant of David, the people might rise up and accept him their new king.

King Herod was not the only one who was troubled by this report by the men from the east. All Jerusalem was troubled with him. A newly born king might complicate their lives more than they already were. If even a young child was proclaimed to be the rightful heir to the throne, no telling what difficulties would arise within the political and social systems that were currently in place. Would it mean more trouble with the Romans?

The wise men were right to be looking for the new king so they could worship him, even if they didn't have a clear understanding of how much of a King He truly was. Jesus was worthy of their worship, and worthy of the gifts they brought. It would also be good for us to realize how worthy Jesus is of our worship and whatever gifts we can give Him.

King Herod and the people of Jerusalem were also right to be troubled. If they were not going to seek Jesus to honor Him, then they had good reason to be troubled. Jesus had been born humbly. He would live and then die on a cross with great humility. We needed Him to be the sacrificial lamb to die in our place for our sins. But Jesus was then and is now still God of all. And He shall return. And there will be judgement. And then there will be a great many who will be troubled. Greatly troubled.

Let's follow the example of those wise men. Let us worship Jesus as our Savior and Lord. If we do, then we won't have to be troubled when we come before Him.

Mary...What Did She Know?

"... the angel Gabriel was sent from God to a city of Galilee named Nazareth, to a virgin betrothed to a man whose name was Joseph, of the house of David. And the virgin's name was Mary.  And he came to her and said, "Greetings, O favored one, the Lord is with you!"  But she was greatly troubled at the saying, and tried to discern what sort of greeting this might be.  And the angel said to her, "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." And Mary said to the angel, "How will this be, since I am a virgin?" And the angel answered her, "The Holy Spirit will come upon you, and the power of the Most High will overshadow you; therefore the child to be born will be called holy—the Son of God.
 (Luke 1:26-35) ESV

In my blog post yesterday I wrote about how the shepherds were afraid when the angel appeared to them with great light in the middle of the night. Angels sent by God in ways that can be seen by people are quite unexpected and when that happens it is normal for people to be afraid.

When the angel Gabriel was sent by God to Mary, she was greatly troubled. She was scared. She did not know what was about to happen.

What Gabriel spoke to her were words to calm her fears. And they were words to cause her to wonder. She was told she had found favor with God. And, even more amazing, she was told she would give birth to a son and was to call him Jesus, and that He would be called the Son of the Most High.

The words of the angel may have calmed her fears, but she still did not understand how what He had said could be true, for she was a virgin. Well, she got her answer. And I believe it is an important answer for us to know about. She was told that the Holy Spirit would come upon her, and therefore the child to be born would be called holy -- the Son of God.

The name that the baby was to be called was Jesus, which means God is the Savior. For Jesus to be our Savior, and die on our behalf for our sins against God, He had to be one of us, a real flesh and blood man, and yet be perfectly sinless, so He had to also be God in the flesh. Jesus was and is both Son of Man and Son of God. He is the Savior we needed, and He came and did what we needed.

Mary had been told incredible things by the angel Gabriel. She knew the baby she would giver birth to would be extraordinary. But even with knowing that, there was much she would not know until that baby grew up and began to demonstrate how much He was the Son of God, and could do glorious things.

From the time the angel told Mary she would give birth to Jesus, to when He was born in Bethlehem, to His years of childhood, and to His years of ministry, then death on a cross, followed His resurrection, Mary continued to learn more about Him.

Learning more about Jesus is a good thing. Getting to know Him should be the focus of our lives. That is why it is good to read about Him in the Bible. And that is why it is good to sing about Him.

The Night The Shepherds Were Afraid

One night, more than 2,000 years ago there were certain shepherds keeping watch over their flock. I expect they were on the look out for animals or thieves who might sneak in and take away one or more of their sheep.

But what they saw that night wasn't a wolf or robber creeping in the darkness. No, they didn't have to strain their eyes that particular night. What they saw was bright, very bright, and it frightened them.

Today we sing about that event. But at first those shepherds did not feel like singing when the angel of the Lord appeared. If they knew it was an angel, they probably also knew it could mean judgment. Had God sent an mighty angel as an agent of His wrath?

But, thankfully, that angel had words from God which called for rejoicing rather than trembling. Those humble men were the first to be told that the birth of the savior, the messiah, the Lord, had taken place.

Indeed that was glorious news for those shepherds, as it is for us today. Indeed, it is news worth singing about.

Why Celebrate the Birth of Jesus?

As we approach December 25 many of us are thinking about what gifts to give to members of our family. We're also enjoying the decorations that are going up around town. We even give thought to what gifts others might give us for Christmas.

As nice as those things are, we ought to remember that even we don't know the exact day of the year Jesus was born, the day is supposed to when people celebrate that He was born. That is why it is good that there are songs that remind us of that.

One such song is O Holy Night, a Christmas carol composed by Adolphe Adam in 1847. As we listen to the words of this and other Christmas carols we hopefully will be reminded of Who Jesus is and therefore why we should celebrate not only His birth, but also His life, death, resurrection, and eternal lordship.

Hearing and Doing What Jesus Says

Mat 7:24-27  "Everyone then who hears these words of mine and does them will be like a wise man who built his house on the rock.  And the rain fell, and the floods came, and the winds blew and beat on that house, but it did not fall, because it had been founded on the rock.  And everyone who hears these words of mine and does not do them will be like a foolish man who built his house on the sand.  And the rain fell, and the floods came, and the winds blew and beat against that house, and it fell, and great was the fall of it."  ESV

Do you know what Jesus said while He was here? It's important to know what He said because He knows things that you and I do not know. He knows what is really important.

Even more important than knowing what Jesus said is doing what He told us to do. There are disastrous consequences for not hearing and doing what Jesus has said. He likened it to building a house on sand.

My grandfather owned a few houses in his lifetime. He even had a house on Cape Cod. But he knew not to buy a house near the ocean because on Cape Cod all the land near the ocean is sand. He'd seen too many houses near the water which after winter storms were severely damaged or gone altogether.

Sand isn't solid or steady. Torrential rains and wind can wash it away along with anything built on it.

So it is with what we build our lives on. Jesus is the one who made everything that is made and knows the purpose of everything. He knows how we are supposed to live and how we are to relate to Him and to one another. We might think somebody else knows better because he or she sounds so smart. Or we might think that we ourselves are smarter than Jesus, so we'll just go and do whatever we think is best.

But just as a hurricanes come and wreck havoc on buildings and property, so there will come storms that can do eternal devastation to ourselves if we don't heed what the Son of God says.

Do you know what Jesus has said? You can find what He said in the Bible. Read it. But don't just be content to just learn what He has said because that is not enough. We need to both hear and then do what He has said.

When we believe who Jesus is, and seek to obey what He says for us to do, and yet fail at it, we can still obey His command to repent. The more we honestly seek to obey Him, and yet not ever perfectly succeed, the more we can and should repent. That, too, is hearing and doing what Jesus has told us.

Get prepared for the various kinds of storms that will come. Know that the only way to prepare for some of those storms is by hearing and doing what Jesus says,