12/25: ADVENT READINGS:

Read Luke 2:1-20; John 1:1-18.

CHRISTMAS DAY

Immanuel

“Behold, the virgin shall conceive and bear a Son, and shall call His name Immanuel (God with us).” Isaiah 7:14

His Birth in History.  “Therefore, also, that Holy One who is to be born will be called the Son of God” (Luke 1:35).  Jesus Christ was born into this world, not from it.  He did not evolve out of history; He came into history from the outside.  Jesus Christ is not the best human being; He is a Being Who cannot be accounted for by the human race at all.  He is not man becoming, but God Incarnate, God coming into human flesh, coming into it from outside.  Hs life is the Highest and the Holiest entering in at the Lowliest door.  Our Lord’s birth was an advent.

His Birth in Me. “For whom I labor in birth again until Christ is formed in you” (Galatians 4:19).  Just as Our Lord came into human history from outside, so He must come into me from outside.  Have I allowed my personal human life to become a “Bethlehem” for the Son of God?  I cannot enter into the realm of the Kingdom of God unless I am born from above by a birth totally unlike natural birth.  “You must be born again” (John 3:7).  This is not a command; it is a foundation fact.  The characteristic of the new birth is that I yield myself so completely to God that Christ is formed in me.  Immediately Christ is formed in me, His nature begins to work through me.

God manifest in the flesh – that is what is made profoundly possible for you and me by the Redemption.  

Oswald Chambers, My Utmost for His Highest, ©1935, December 25.