Dec 25, 2025 – Bethlehem
Yesterday afternoon as I was tying up all of the loose ends of wrapping and meal prep and cleaning, “The Santa Claus 2” was on TV. I’ve lost count of how many times I’ve watched it this season, mostly having it on in the background while I get things done. Yesterday, though, I sat down for the office Christmas party scene – and I got teary-eyed as I watched the complacent adults turn into starry-eyed children and then emotional again when Lucy gets to see Santa. Nostalgia can evoke sweet emotions. Our faith should do the same. My father always got a little weepy when he told about his faith awakening, from religion to relationship, while stationed in Japan in the 1940s. He was truly awed as he looked back and saw how God had been walking with, guiding and loving, him all of his life, before and after Japan.
Power – Colossians 3:2 – “Set your minds and keep them set on what is above (the higher things), not on things that are on the earth.” Joyce writes, You may not realize how strong you are when you set your mind on something. This works in both positive and negative ways. If you set your mind on things above, the devil cannot stop you, but if you set your mind on the things of men and have a wrong mindset, it is difficult to receive God’s help…. Make your mind up that you are going to live for God’s glory and you aren’t going to let anything change your mind.” That is indeed what my father did. In his humanness, he had his share of weaknesses and failures, but his heart was with God.
JA – “I AM THE WORD THAT BECAME FLESH…. As you think about Me as a baby, born in Bethlehem, do not lose sight of My divinity…. My sacrificial life and death would have been insufficient if I were not God. So rejoice that the Word, who entered the world as a helpless infant, is the same One who brought the world into existence. Though I was rich, for your sake I became poor, so that you might become rich. No Christmas present could ever compare with the treasure you have in Me! I remove your sins…. I gift you with unimaginably glorious life that will never end! The best response to this astonishing Gift is to embrace it joyfully and gratefully.” (See John 1:1, 14, Hebrews 1:1-2, 2 Corinthians 8:9, and Psalm 103:12.)
Prevail 359 – Revelation 12:11 – “And they have defeated him by the blood of the Lamb and by their testimony. And they did not love their lives so much that they were afraid to die.” Larson offers great perspectives and wisdom in her devotions, but I also find great comfort in the truth she reminds us of today so that I can live more in peace than in fear, “Jesus intends for us to overcome because He overcame…. The blood saves us. Our testimony activates us. And when we love Jesus more than our very lives, when we see our eternity as so precious that we give our earthly lives in whatever way he asks of us, there’s nothing that the enemy can do to us. We render him powerless. We become overcomers. It’s fear that keeps us under his thumb. It’s self-preservation and love of comfort that renders us powerless against him. But when we truly see that we are more spiritual than physical, more found than lost, more equipped than vulnerable, we will dare to follow Jesus wherever He leads…. You may not have to die for your faith, but Jesus may ask you to stand up in a way that costs you.”
JC – “As you wait attentively in my presence, the light of the knowledge of My glory shines upon you. This radiant knowledge transcends all understanding. It transforms every fiber of your being renewing your mind, cleansing your heart, invigorating your body. Open yourself fully to My presence; be awed by My glorious being.”
Streams – Matthew 1:23 – “’They will call him Immanuel’ – which means, ‘God with us.’” Cowman tells about a Christmas card from years ago in her time so it was even longer ago for us. She writes, “It was based on our Savior’s own words, ‘If I had not come,’ in John 15:22. The card pictured a minister falling asleep in his study on Christmas morning and then dreaming of a world into which Jesus had never come.” She goes into detail telling about all he experienced in a world without Christ describing how he “burst into tears, weeping bitterly in his sorrowful dream. Then suddenly he awoke with a start, and a great shout of joy and praise burst from his lips as he heard his choir singing these words in his church nearby: ‘O come, all ye faithful…. O come let us adore Him, Christ the Lord!’ Let us be glad and rejoice today, because He has come.”
Utmost – Galatians 4:19 – “Of whom I travail in birth again until Christ be formed in you.” Chambers writes, “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 God unless I am born from above (RV mg) by a birth totally unlike natural birth. ‘Ye must be born again.’ 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.”
