TODAY WOW Luke 2

Scripture selections are taken from the Rock Church Daily Bread Reading schedule for each month. “Lena’s Journalin’” are Lena’s comments on the specific passages from her Daily Journal.

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Luke 2:1-52
The Birth of Jesus
1At that time the Roman emperor, Augustus, decreed that a census should be taken throughout the Roman Empire. 2(This was the first census taken when Quirinius was governor of Syria.) 3All returned to their own towns to register for this census. 4And because Joseph was a descendant of King David, he had to go to Bethlehem in Judea, David's ancient home. He traveled there from the village of Nazareth in Galilee. 5He took with him Mary, his fianc‚e, who was obviously pregnant by this time.
6And while they were there, the time came for her baby to be born. 7She gave birth to her first child, a son. She wrapped him snugly in strips of cloth and laid him in a manger, because there was no room for them in the village inn.
The Shepherds and Angels
8That night some shepherds were in the fields outside the village, guarding their flocks of sheep. 9Suddenly, an angel of the Lord appeared among them, and the radiance of the Lord's glory surrounded them. They were terribly frightened, 10but the angel reassured them. "Don't be afraid!" he said. "I bring you good news of great joy for everyone! 11The Savior—yes, the Messiah, the Lord—has been born tonight in Bethlehem, the city of David! 12And this is how you will recognize him: You will find a baby lying in a manger, wrapped snugly in strips of cloth!"
13Suddenly, the angel was joined by a vast host of others—the armies of heaven—praising God:
14 "Glory to God in the highest heaven, and peace on earth to all whom God favors. F6 "
15When the angels had returned to heaven, the shepherds said to each other, "Come on, let's go to Bethlehem! Let's see this wonderful thing that has happened, which the Lord has told us about."
16They ran to the village and found Mary and Joseph. And there was the baby, lying in the manger. 17Then the shepherds told everyone what had happened and what the angel had said to them about this child. 18All who heard the shepherds' story were astonished, 19but Mary quietly treasured these things in her heart and thought about them often. 20The shepherds went back to their fields and flocks, glorifying and praising God for what the angels had told them, and because they had seen the child, just as the angel had said.
Jesus Is Presented in the Temple
21Eight days later, when the baby was circumcised, he was named Jesus, the name given him by the angel even before he was conceived.
22Then it was time for the purification offering, as required by the law of Moses after the birth of a child; so his parents took him to Jerusalem to present him to the Lord. 23The law of the Lord says, "If a woman's first child is a boy, he must be dedicated to the Lord." F7 24So they offered a sacrifice according to what was required in the law of the Lord—"either a pair of turtledoves or two young pigeons." F8
The Prophecy of Simeon
25Now there was a man named Simeon who lived in Jerusalem. He was a righteous man and very devout. He was filled with the Holy Spirit, and he eagerly expected the Messiah to come and rescue Israel. 26The Holy Spirit had revealed to him that he would not die until he had seen the Lord's Messiah. 27That day the Spirit led him to the Temple. So when Mary and Joseph came to present the baby Jesus to the Lord as the law required, 28Simeon was there. He took the child in his arms and praised God, saying,
29 "Lord, now I can die in peace! As you promised me,
30 I have seen the Savior
31 you have given to all people.
32 He is a light to reveal God to the nations, and he is the glory of your people Israel!"
33Joseph and Mary were amazed at what was being said about Jesus. 34Then Simeon blessed them, and he said to Mary, "This child will be rejected by many in Israel, and it will be their undoing. But he will be the greatest joy to many others. 35Thus, the deepest thoughts of many hearts will be revealed. And a sword will pierce your very soul."
The Prophecy of Anna
36Anna, a prophet, was also there in the Temple. She was the daughter of Phanuel, of the tribe of Asher, and was very old. She was a widow, for her husband had died when they had been married only seven years. 37She was now eighty-four years old. She never left the Temple but stayed there day and night, worshiping God with fasting and prayer. 38She came along just as Simeon was talking with Mary and Joseph, and she began praising God. She talked about Jesus to everyone who had been waiting for the promised King to come and deliver Jerusalem.
39When Jesus' parents had fulfilled all the requirements of the law of the Lord, they returned home to Nazareth in Galilee. 40There the child grew up healthy and strong. He was filled with wisdom beyond his years, and God placed his special favor upon him.
Jesus Speaks with the Teachers
41Every year Jesus' parents went to Jerusalem for the Passover festival. 42When Jesus was twelve years old, they attended the festival as usual. 43After the celebration was over, they started home to Nazareth, but Jesus stayed behind in Jerusalem. His parents didn't miss him at first, 44because they assumed he was with friends among the other travelers. But when he didn't show up that evening, they started to look for him among their relatives and friends. 45When they couldn't find him, they went back to Jerusalem to search for him there. 46Three days later they finally discovered him. He was in the Temple, sitting among the religious teachers, discussing deep questions with them. 47And all who heard him were amazed at his understanding and his answers.
48His parents didn't know what to think. "Son!" his mother said to him. "Why have you done this to us? Your father and I have been frantic, searching for you everywhere."
49"But why did you need to search?" he asked. "You should have known that I would be in my Father's house." F9 50But they didn't understand what he meant.
51Then he returned to Nazareth with them and was obedient to them; and his mother stored all these things in her heart. 52So Jesus grew both in height and in wisdom, and he was loved by God and by all who knew him.
FOOTNOTES:F6: Or and peace on earth for all those pleasing God; some manuscripts read and peace on earth, goodwill among people. F7: Exod 13:2. F8: Lev 12:8. F9: Or "Didn't you realize that I should be involved with my Father's affairs?"
Copyright Statement: Holy Bible, The New Living TranslationCopyright © 1996 by Tyndale Charitable Trust. Used by permission of Tyndale House Publishers. All rights reserved.

~ Lena’s Journalin’
I’d like to write a bit about covenant promise, here labeled “betrothal”. Whenever we read God’s word, we want to read it inside of the setting of the time it is being lived in and also through the eyes of covenant to see the fuller meanings.
The church of the Lord Jesus Christ, which also is called His very own Body, or His bride, is not yet married, but is betrothed to the Lord. She is “promised” to be His bride, His wife.
In the USA, promise has become a very mild word, but with God it is a very strong word. We fully expect God to keep His promises, do we not keep ours? Tthen why would we think God Himself would be expecting anything less from us?
Have you noticed that weddings usually convene at altars? Also for most the prayer for salvation also begins at an altar? Is that not relative? It is. And in the OT (Old Testament) what was an altar originally for? It was for worship of God. It was a place man stops His life, builds something, makes a place to worship God, gets a living being, (an animal to be more specific, and a good one at that), something of value to Him, something he had to pay for or work towards getting, and the man lays the living being on the altar and ties it up and kills it and burns it up till it’s old appearance is no longer visible. The life is now changed, consumed, and possibly ingested, which brings life and strength to one who is still living. All of this is done for the purpose of showing God love and obedience and to give what could have been kept for us, over to Him.
So we make promises at altars, why? Most promises are sacrifices. It takes a sacrifice to make and especially keep the promise. Usually at altars we are not only making a promise to another person, but to God Himself. That’s a pretty serious action we take there at altars, and God is very serious about us keeping the promises we make. Yes, they will be hard to keep, but through the relationship we find, develop and keep in and with Him, we can gain strength to keep the promise all the way through to the end.
Joseph was promised or betrothed to Mary, who become pregnant. They were not yet married, they were engaged to be married, they’d not yet had physical relations, but it was said Joseph thought to divorce her! Wait a minute, aren’t they just engaged? Why then would he have to divorce her to get away from the promise to her? Because God does not see engagement as temporary based on if everything works out. He sees it as a promise yet to be fulfilled. A man’s word with God is very weighty. Joseph and his family considered marriage to Mary andHafter their consideration they promised it to be so. The consummation of the marriage was not the evidence of marriage, the promise was. God and Joseph and Mary’s families fully expected what a man said he would do, to be done, just as we expect what God says he’ll do to also be done. By the time betrothal happened the decision was already made, yes wedding preparations were in order, but that was just prep time for what would happen, not what could be backed out of.
We, as Born Again Christians have had this same cultural idea of salvation, as we do the morals of our land. We think we can promise and if it doesn’t work, we can be forgiven the promise. Our land is full of divorce for every reason in the book, even imagined ones. Yes there are valid reasons, but is every reason valid? What about adultery, or fornication, what about being impregnated by another? This is what Joseph saw with his natural eye. He had to be shown by God what was really going on in side of Mary and once he chose to believe God he and Mary had to stand together in the embarrassment it brought in order to carry the seed of God together through to the birth. In our day instead of Joseph considering “divorcing” Mary, he could have considered aborting the baby, putting the baby away secretly and being hush, hush about Mary, yet keeping her and forgiving her, but erasing the shame or uncounted on pre-mature responsibility a child would bring into a relationship so new.
This is the same principle we face when we’ve made any promise to God. Do we consider divorce with the promise, do we belittle the original promise, minimize its importance in our ideal and maybe even abort it?
Many have stood at altars and promised their lives to be given over to the Lord and are yet to even walk with Him, let alone consummate the “marriage”. He expects the promise to be fulfilled, whether we knew full well what we were doing or not.
How many knew what was ahead when they got married? Or had children? You do it, then you get informed. You do it by faith! Faith is what pleases God. You depend on His help to walk all the way through the promise. Marriage is long term with Jesus and so is betrothal. To the Lord they are one and the same. Your word is your word, God fully expects us to keep our words.
He does not expect us to say a prayer, moving our lips, go away and live as we lived before, doing what we want how we want, hardly going to church, not serving Him and not growing in His grace by His word. He calls us into a family, right away, if we do not assemble at the family gatherings why would God call us a part of His family? A family is a unit, not an individual who does what they want and says God is their Father.
If married and the wife or husband did what they wanted whenever they wanted and didn’t tell the other spouse, yet came home when they pleased, using the other spouses body per se for their own right and pleasure, just to turn and leave again at will coming and going with no account of their whereabouts, there’d be something seriously wrong with that picture, and yet however horrendous this picture so many have treated God’s body this horrid way.
Marriage and parenting involve great daily sacrifice, your whole life changes, you go in as one kind of person and you get changed into another person daily. That is actually God’s plan to use the tool of people interaction to change us. In both marriage and parenting, you lose your own identity in the covenant relationship. That’s Godly. We want to become as He is and He is not like us, we are to become as He is, that requires a lot of change.
In Marriage, you don’t do your own will, and especially in parenting, you strongly consider the wills of others in the family on a regular basis, and the uptightness of not getting things our own way has got to dissipate or we’ll find ourselves in misery fighting after the flesh.
We, the body of Christ, the betrothed of the Lord, those who have made promises to God, to give their lives to God, are being required to make good on our promises, renew them, become disciples of them, while we still have time. He wants to bring forth a Child, a Christ child, through each and every one of us. He wants to birth His promises into the earth through His bride. Jesus was the firstborn of many brethren, who will those brethren be born to? His betrothed, the church, those who said they believe Jesus died and rose again, We are the ones carrying the promise of God, will we divorce Him or abort the promises? Or will we carry them through? He believes and expects us to carry them through.
We cannot do that alone, we need the whole body, every part to carry this, to birth, and raise it for God.
If you made a promise of salvation at an “altar,” even if it was in your bed at home, and you’ve not gone on in growth, today is your day to repent to God and get on board, seriously. Even if today you said ahh, I’ll do that someday, God is excepting you to do it today, tomorrow and forever. He said He would and you said you would, through Christ who strengthens you. He did not leave you alone, He placed people who also believe around you, to help you walk out your promise by faith in Him.
Come, join a local church body, join Bible Study groups, come regularly, without excuse, re-arrange your life (sacrifice) and schedules for the assembly, the family dinner, and meetings. Change your lifestyle, showing God He and His body are important to you too. Live sacrificially for others, for God. Now is the time. Tell co-workers what is more important to you, be brave and tell your spouse that God is important to you, so important you cannot stand to serve Him alone, (though you will if need be) but you want them with you when you show your love for God by assembling and serving and worshiping.
Joseph and Mary eventually had to both tell and show the world that Mary was with child and that Joseph was with her when she was with child outside of a physically consummated marriage. The world did not understand that and they put their reputation of whatever the world would call them on the line for the purposes of God to come forth through their plan altered lives.

Daily Repetitive Verses:

Isaiah 58:12 You'll use the old rubble of past lives to build anew, rebuild the foundations from out of your past. You'll be known as those who can fix anything, restore old ruins, rebuild and renovate, make the community livable again. THE MESSAGE: The Bible in Contemporary Language