Have you had your Joy Juice today? Drink the special Christmas-flavored joy!
Do you ever
wonder why Jesus’ birth was announced first to the shepherds? Max Lucado writes in his book One
Incredible Moment that it
was because of their meekness and willingness to accept that God knew what He
was doing. He goes on to write that “had the angel gone to the theologians, they
would have first consulted their commentaries.
Had he gone to the elite, they would have looked around to see if anyone
was watching. Had he gone to the
successful, they would have first looked at their calendars.
So he went to the shepherds. Men who didn’t have a reputation to protect
or an ax to grind or a ladder to climb.
Men who didn’t know enough to tell God that angels don’t sing to sheep
and that messiahs aren’t found wrapped in rags and sleeping in a feed trough…”
In other
words, the shepherds were meek men who accepted the truth without
question. So where’s the JOY in this
part of the Christmas story? It’s found
in the meekness of the shepherds…their tender hearts toward God. Keep in mind that meekness is not weakness. It’s quite the opposite. When we allow the Holy Spirit to be in
control of our thoughts, words, actions, desires; when we’re completely
surrendered to God in all areas of our lives, we’ll be developing the fruit of
meekness….and that leads to MUCH JOY in the Lord.
Let’s
follow the shepherds to the place of meekness and drink in the Christmas joy
that can be freely ours.
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