Do you Know the Way Home?
Good Morning Friends,
Amazing how God intervenes through the Holy Spirit and uses us to help others on their way. Today’s scripture helps us learn this lesson about helping others on the way…this process of giving and following directions… of offering grace upon grace. The scripture today parallels this message laying out a road map for our salvation over the bridge of the cross. The application for our personal and collective faith journeys is unmistakable. We have been given heavenly directions to navigate this earthly experience…directions that will help us reach our home in heaven. We have been given directions to remember, the Word made flesh and Holy Spirit to guide us as a lamp unto our feet. And in our final steps to our destination we are to walk a straight path. If we have faith in those giving the directions, the doors will be opened. The light will be left on. The Word will be waiting for us. Do you Know the Way Home?
Scripture: In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God. All things came into being through him, and without him not one thing came into being. What has come into being in him was life, and the life was the light of all people. The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness did not overcome it. There was a man sent from God, whose name was John. He came as a witness to testify to the light, so that all might believe through him. He himself was not the light, but he came to testify to the light. The true light, which enlightens everyone, was coming into the world. He was in the world, and the world came into being through him; yet the world did not know him. He came to what was his own, and his own people did not accept him. But to all who received him, who believed in his name, he gave power to become children of God, who were born, not of blood or of the will of the flesh or of the will of man, but of God. And the Word became flesh and lived among us, and we have seen his glory, the glory as of a father’s only son, full of grace and truth. (John testified to him and cried out, ‘This was he of whom I said, “He who comes after me ranks ahead of me because he was before me.” ‘) From his fullness we have all received, grace upon grace. The law indeed was given through Moses; grace and truth came through Jesus Christ. No one has ever seen God. It is God the only Son, who is close to the Father’s heart, who has made him known.
John 1:1-18 (NRSV)
and you will know the truth, and the truth will make you free.’
John 8:32 (NRSV)
About midnight Paul and Silas were praying and singing hymns to God, and the prisoners were listening to them. Suddenly there was an earthquake, so violent that the foundations of the prison were shaken; and immediately all the doors were opened and everyone’s chains were unfastened. When the jailer woke up and saw the prison doors wide open, he drew his sword and was about to kill himself, since he supposed that the prisoners had escaped. But Paul shouted in a loud voice, ‘Do not harm yourself, for we are all here.’ The jailer called for lights, and rushing in, he fell down trembling before Paul and Silas. Then he brought them outside and said, ‘Sirs, what must I do to be saved?’ They answered, ‘Believe on the Lord Jesus, and you will be saved, you and your household.’ They spoke the word of the Lord to him and to all who were in his house. At the same hour of the night he took them and washed their wounds; then he and his entire family were baptized without delay. He brought them up into the house and set food before them; and he and his entire household rejoiced that he had become a believer in God.
Acts 16:25-34 (NRSV)
Message: Resist the lies of the world and embrace the way, the truth and the light of the World in the Word following Christmas. For the grace of God existed long before we had faith and believed. The wonder of Christmas can come alive for you and continue if you let go and let God. Let Him clean up your heart. Let Him rearrange your priorities so that you can make room for Christ in your life. Let Him decorate your life with God’s blessings. Receive the gift of Christ’s love. Submit. Be a receiver of the greatest of gifts… the infinite infant… the coming of the creator, life and light, the song and supper of salvation…grace upon grace. So give up your pride. Be a humble receiver of the truth, the way to life. Be born of God… a child. And breathe the words that free you to be true too. Be born by belief and become your true selves. That is the truth of Christmas… that He was born to save, to say and share and be these words.” I am the way. I am the truth.” We are to experience God redeeming our past, present and future. Before Abraham was Jesus Christ the I AM. Think about Jesus the man for a moment. He wrote no books, he led no armies; he died a criminal’s death and left his truths with a few plain and unpromising disciples. Yet his life stands alone and we somehow do not live on the memory of it alone. Somehow empowered through his victory we continue as to share in His creation. The infinite indeed became an infant and we in believing become the light children of God. Some cosmologists now believe that the universe in which we are part of will eventually decay leaving only light. Even black holes will decay. Like a great checker board game matter will cancel out anti matter leaving in a trillion, trillion, trillion years…more than one year for every atom in the universe… everything the same forever. The spiritual reality is strikingly similar as we mirror the universe’s future. Here we are to be witness to the life of Christ in creation, witnesses that he indeed walked this earth and witnesses that today and tomorrow He will remove sorrow…vanquish sickness…conquer sin and destroy death leaving only the grace of his light forever.
Pray we recognize that God’s Word and its spiritual truths never changes. Pray we realize that for the foreseeable future sin and its penalty never changes. Pray we realize that the plan for our Salvation never changes. Pray we rejoice in a changeless Christ. Pray we rejoice because He meets the problems of our tomorrows assuring us a life at home with Him. Pray we understand that Christ has promised to come for us and we will see Him as He is and we shall be like Him. Pray we realize that God is bigger than our universe.
Pray we unwrap the word of God in us each and every day.
Pray that today we dwell in the center of the divine grace of God the Father and Jesus the Son and in the comfort and conviction of the Holy Spirit. Pray we be fixed on the domain where truth and reality shine. Pray we appreciate Jesus’ greatness and His unique relationship to the universe. Pray we appreciate His relationship to man and the life and light He brings. Pray that Jesus helps us to understand what came before and what comes after….that He was pre-existent…He is eternal…He is the awesomely beautiful radiating love of eternal glory. Pray we follow Jesus home on the path of faith, over the bridge of belief, through the door of grace into the light of love.
Blessings,
John Lawson
Daily Devotionals 