Breaking the silence …
As soon as the words left my friend’s mouth, the handful of us sitting there listening to him all smiled. That’s because we knew this was, once again, our friend just talking.
Our mutual friend rattled on excitedly about a new idea, some new bold venture he wanted to pursue. Over the many years we knew each other, he had voiced several bold ideas his vivid imagination had conjured up. Few ever became a reality.
Our friend liked to talk.
So on this day, we just smiled as he talked. We had heard him talk a lot, now we were waiting for him to act.
The 400 years of silence between what is recorded in the Old Testament, and the birth of Jesus Christ on that first Christmas day, was God concluding what He had to say.
Then God broke the silence with dramatic action. He gave us His Son. He did what He dreamed of and spoke about.
God is not just a talker, He accomplishes all that He states. His words are not empty, but declarative. Before He created this world or anything in it, He dreamed of this moment of giving His Son as a gift to the world. It wasn’t empty talk.
The birth of Christ was God’s bold new venture with humankind …
“And all of this is a gift from God, who brought us back to himself through Christ …” (2 Cor. 5:18a) “For God was in Christ, reconciling the world to himself …” (2 Cor 5:19a) “For God made Christ, who never sinned, to be the offering for our sin, so that we could be made right with God through Christ” (2 Cor. 5:21).
A great lesson of Christmas is the need for us to listen closely to what God says, for you can count on Him doing whatever He states.
Are you listening closely to God? Do you trust that He will bring to pass what He has promised?
Scotty
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