BORROWED
WOMB BORROWED STABLE BORROWED TOMB
BREAD
28 The
angel went to her and said, “Greetings, you who are highly favored! The Lord is
with you.” 29 Mary
was greatly troubled at his words and wondered what kind of greeting this might
be. 30 But the angel said to her, “Do not be afraid, Mary,
you have found favor with God. 31 You will be with child and give birth to a son, and
you are to give him the name Jesus. 32 He will be great and will be called the Son of the
Most High. The Lord God will give him the throne of his father David, 33 and
he will reign over the house of Jacob forever; his kingdom will never
end.” 34 “How
will this be,” Mary asked the angel, “since I am a virgin?” 35 The angel answered, “The Holy Spirit will come upon
you, and the power of the Most High will overshadow you. So the holy one to be
born will be called the Son of God. 36 Even Elizabeth your relative is going to have a child
in her old age, and she who was said to be barren is in her sixth month. 37 For
nothing is impossible with God.” Luke
1:28-37 (NIV)
1 In
those days Caesar Augustus issued a decree that a census should be taken of the
entire Roman world. 2 (This was the first census that took place while
Quirinius was governor of Syria.) 3 And everyone went to his own town to register. 4 So
Joseph also went up from the town of Nazareth in Galilee to Judea, to Bethlehem
the town of David, because he belonged to the house and line of David. 5 He
went there to register with Mary, who was pledged to be married to him and was
expecting a child. 6 While they were there, the time came for the baby to
be born, 7 and she gave birth to her firstborn, a son. She
wrapped him in cloths and placed him in a manger, because there was no room for
them in the inn. Luke 2:1-7 (NIV)
57 As
evening approached, there came a rich man from Arimathea, named Joseph, who had
himself become a disciple of Jesus. 58 Going to Pilate, he asked for Jesus’ body, and Pilate
ordered that it be given to him. 59 Joseph took the body, wrapped it in a clean linen
cloth, 60 and placed it in his own new tomb that he had cut out
of the rock. He rolled a big stone in front of the entrance to the tomb and
went away. 61 Mary Magdalene and the other Mary were sitting there
opposite the tomb. Matthew 27:57-61
(NIV)
20 Jesus
replied, “Foxes have holes and birds of the air have
nests, but the Son of Man has no place to lay his head.” Matthew 8:20 (NIV)
3 Do
nothing out of selfish ambition or vain conceit, but in humility consider
others better than yourselves. 4 Each of you should look not only to your own
interests, but also to the interests of others.
5 Your attitude should be the same as that of Christ
Jesus: 6 Who,
being in very nature God, did not consider equality with God something to be
grasped, 7 but
made himself nothing, taking the very nature of a servant, being made in human
likeness. 8 And being found in appearance as a man, he humbled himself
and became obedient to death-- even death on a cross! 9 Therefore God exalted him to the highest place and gave him
the name that is above every name, 10 that
at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, in heaven and on earth and under
the earth, 11 and
every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.
Philippians 2:3-11 (NIV)
6 Humble
yourselves, therefore, under God's mighty hand, that he may lift you up in due
time. 7 Cast all your anxiety on him because he cares for
you. 1 Peter 5:6-7 (NIV)
BUTTER
“A
stable was not where Joseph wanted to be that night. It held no romance for him. He was only there out of desperation. Jesus came to humble Himself to unfathomable
depths. But Joseph likely didn’t grasp any of that in Bethlehem. In the mayhem of the moment, all he knew was
that the best he could do for Mary and the Messiah was a stable full of real
and ritual uncleanness. And to battle
fear and shame, all he could have done was trust that somehow God, who could
have provided differently, had some mysterious purpose in this humiliation. And in that is a Christmas word to us. There are times, while seeking to follow God
faithfully, we find ourselves in a desperate moment, forced to a place we would
not choose to go. It’s then we must
remember: our lives and circumstances
are not ultimately about us. They are
about Jesus Christ. The Father has
purposes for us and our hardships that extend far beyond us. What often appear like misfortunes in the
moment later prove to be means of great mercies. In your place of desperation it may be that
what you need most is not less turmoil,
but more trust. For God chooses stables
of desperation as the birthplaces of His overwhelming grace.” Jon Bloom
“Nothing
sets a person so much out of the devil’s reach as humility.” Jonathan Edwards
“Father, as we’re here today, please
help us to rid our hearts and minds of the clutter that is within them. Our thoughts are clouded by worldly matters-
things that don’t matter. Our hearts
seek after things that don’t satisfy. We
run after the perishable and fail to seek the imperishable. Forgive us, Father. May Your
Spirit remind us of Your Presence in all of our lives- all of the time. Guide us.
Let our thoughts and words and attitudes be pleasing to You. Let us imitate Christ. Give us His mind and His attitude. Strip us of our pride and self-sufficiency
and may we be humble as Jesus showed
Humility. In the Name of Jesus,
Who humbled Himself to death, even death on the Cross, for us, we pray.” Roger Killian
“When God doesn’t prevent suffering, He gives us perspective on
suffering. Sometimes you just
have to get a ‘God’s-eye’ view to see that the master potter is scooping up all
the rubble and ruin from your low place to mold and create good in your life.
His love reaches down into the dirt – what you may think is utter defeat or hopeless
– and lifts you to see that He can turn what you may view as worthless into
something worthwhile. God can take what we think is worthless and turn it
into something worthwhile. Often, when we’re down, all we can see is the
valley, the wasteland – we feel like our lives are a mess. But our loving God
does not see us and our low places that way. The stuff you think may be just
too messy, too ugly, too far gone is the stuff God is infusing with purpose. The sorrow that hurts you?
God fashions it into faith that sustains you.
The sin you’re ashamed of? God
uses it to create beautiful humility. The failures you regret? God turns them
into wisdom. The grief that shattered
your heart? God crafts that into unshakeable faith. The missed opportunities? God uses those to
make you reflect His grace. The loss you
never expected? God molds that into strength you can’t explain. God can make your low place a stepping stone
to climb higher with Him. He can take even
the worst things in your life – the injustice, defeat, abandonment or failure –
to create the best for you, His beloved child.” Jennifer Rothschild
“Jesus found His glory in taking the
form of a servant. There is nothing so
divine and heavenly as being the servant and helper of all. Humility, the place of entire dependence on
God, is, from the very nature of things, the first duty and the highest virtue
of the creature, and the root of every virtue…Humility is the only soil in
which the graces root; the lack of humility is the sufficient explanation of
every defect and failure. Humility is
not so much a grace or virtue along with others; it is the root of all, because
it alone takes the right attitude before God and allows Him as God to do
all. Brother, are you clothed with
humility? Ask your daily life. Ask Jesus.
Ask your friends. Ask the world. And begin to praise God that there is opened
up to you in Jesus a heavenly humility of which you have hardly known, and
through which, a heavenly blessedness you possibly have never yet tasted, can
come to you.” Andrew Murray
“Stoop if you want to climb to heaven. Is it not said of
Jesus, ‘He who descended is the one who also ascended’? So must you. You must grow downwards, that
you may grow upwards; for the sweetest fellowship with heaven will be enjoyed
by humble souls and by them alone. God will deny no blessing to a thoroughly
humbled spirit. ‘Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of
heaven,’ with all its riches and treasures. All of God’s resources will be made
available to the soul that is humble enough to be able to receive them without
growing proud because of it. When a man is
sincerely humble and never tries to take the credit or the praise, there is
scarcely any limit to what God will do for him. Humility makes us ready to be
blessed by the God of all grace and equips us to deal efficiently with our
fellows. True humility is a flower that will adorn any garden. This is a sauce
that will season every dish of life and improve it in every case. Whether in
prayer or praise, whether in work or suffering, the genuine salt of humility
cannot be used in excess.” C. H.
Spurgeon
“When I am weak, then I am strong. When I am foolish, then I am wise (1
Corinthians 3:18). When I am humbled, then I will be exalted (Matthew 23:12).
These are the cries of crucified pride. We do not treasure our weaknesses in
themselves, but the wise and humble savor what the good God does through our
weaknesses when we entrust our frailty and inadequacy to him. He loves to see
his surpassing power perfected and put on display in the storefronts of
brokenhearted souls.” Marshall Segal
“Strive to turn your heart from loving things that are seen,
and to set it upon things that are not seen…How much better is a lowly peasant
who serves God than a proud philosopher who watches the stars and neglects
knowing himself…We must not trust every word of others or feeling within
ourselves, but cautiously and patiently try the matter, whether it be of God. The more humble a man is in himself, and the
more obedient toward God, the wiser will he be in all things, and the more
shall his soul be at peace.” Thomas a Kempis
HEART
SAVOR
- ·
Jesus
humbled Himself and so must we.
- ·
There is no
work beneath us and all of us are on level ground at the foot of the cross.
- ·
It is not
about us, it is all about Him.
