Devotions this week based on Come Home Week 3 – TRUST (WATCH HERE)
Luke 2:20 The shepherds returned, glorifying and praising God for all the things they had heard and seen, which were just as they had been told.
“That’s not what I expected.”
We all have experienced at some point in life failed expectations. Someone tells you one thing and does another. Someone describes an event and it isn’t anything like it. Politicians promise one thing before election and do another afterwards.
It’s hard to trust someone who doesn’t do what they say.
I’m sure for God’s Old Testament believers the challenge was real. Generation after generation received promises of God’s coming Messiah, the Branch of Jesse, the blessing to Abraham and many more. It’s hard to continue to trust when people keep saying, “Just wait, he’s coming.”
We have trouble waiting for a fast food establishment to bring our order up after 30 seconds let alone 300…3000 years.
At what point would we…would you give up trusting God was going to do what he said?
We don’t know why God chose his timeline or his timing. But he did.
We don’t know why God chose to announce the pinnacle of his plan, the birth of his Son, to a bunch of shepherds outside of Jerusalem. Maybe the shepherds knew the promise of one who would be a perfect Shepherd. Maybe they just sang “The Lord is my shepherd” as they put the sheep in pen for the night. We don’t know…but God did.
God had a captive audience.
God had a willing audience.
God had a trusting audience.
The angels spoke and the shepherds acted. They went to see what the Lord had done. They found the baby in the manger.
But it wasn’t just seeing the baby in the manger that returned them to the field “glorifying and praising God,” it was also the fact that what they experienced was “just as they had been told.”
Immediately it was the words of the angels…just as they said, they saw.
For the big picture it was all the words and promises of the Lord that they had been told, they saw fulfilled in the baby wrapped in swaddling clothes and lying in a manger.
Christmas is the pinnacle of proving God’s trustworthiness.
Christmas is the foundation of ensuring God’s promises are true.
Christmas is the reminder that God can be trusted.
Christmas is the proof that God does what he says…always.
Reflection: What promise of God do you struggle to believe or trust? How can this verse from Luke 2:20 give you confidence to trust even if you don’t know the outcome?
Prayer: Lord, thank you for promising and following through…always. Thank you for speaking and then doing what you say you would. Forgive us for the times we fail to trust. Strengthen our trust that we can truly rely on the fact that when you speak, you will act. AMEN