Category: Devotionals

Our family was quarantined with scarlet fever when I was about 10. Someone from the health department posted a notice on our front door saying no one was to enter or exit the house for two weeks.

The corner grocery left sacks of groceries on our porch.  The school teachers came by to check on us and talked to Mama through the door.

Mama babysat a 2-year-old neighbor girl, so she was quarantined with us. I remember her mama talking to her through the window, but I don’t remember Diana being particularly upset. She called my mama “Mama Hightower” and spent almost as much time at our house as she did at her own.

After a couple of days, when we started feeling a little better, our experience was more like playing hooky from school. We did same thing we usually did—playing school and Sunday school. I was the teacher as we studied reading, writing, and arithmetic. We memorized Bible verses and read Bible stories.

It was fun for us kids but I can’t imagine what our poor mother went through, with four sick kids, and only herself to take care of them.

Lepers were quarantined in Bible days. They were required by Levitical law to call out as they walked, “Unclean, Unclean!” so that people would know they were about to come in contact with a person with a highly contagious disease.

Luke tells the story of Jesus and the ten lepers in Luke 17:12-14 kjv. “And as he [Jesus] entered into a certain village, there met him ten men that were lepers, which stood afar off: And they lifted up their voices, and said, Jesus, Master, have mercy on us. And when he saw them, he said unto them, Go shew yourselves unto the priests. And it came to pass, that, as they went, they were cleansed.”

It was unheard of for a quarantined leper to show up in the temple, to get near a priest, but if Jesus told them to, they believed they must obey, and as they did, they were healed.

As you believe and obey, your healing will come.

 

When I was preparing for Christmas Eve dinner at my home, I was working around the kitchen, and since the kids weren’t home yet, I also set the dinner table, complete with tablecloth, cloth napkins, my good dishes, glassware, and silverware, and matching serving bowls and platters. It’s about the only time I ever set the table.

The dining table, chairs, and china cabinet are new to me, from an estate sale, so I decided with the table all set and looking so pretty, I would take a picture of it, with the china cabinet in the background.. Of course, I meant to take a picture of the family after we were seated, but with all the commotion, I forgot.

We got a few good pictures of Christmas gift exchange, and when I uploaded the pictures to Facebook to show my friends, I also posted the picture of the table. For a description, I posted, “The table is set, dinner is ready, and I’m just waiting for the kids to get home.”

Just waiting for the family to get home.

“A certain man gave a great supper and invited many, and sent his servant at supper time to say to those who were invited, ‘Come, for all things are now ready.’ Luke 14:16-17 NKJV

There’s an old gospel song, “Jesus has the table spread where the saints of God are fed, He invites His chosen people, Come and dine. With His manna He doth feed and supplies our every need, Oh, ’tis sweet to sup with Jesus all the time!” (Come and Dine, Charles B. Widmeyer, public domain, 1907)

Jesus has been preparing a place for you, for all of  us who believe, a place in heaven that’s just waiting for God’s children. We will all sit down at the table of the Marriage Supper of Jesus Christ, the Lamb of God.

Jesus told His disciples in John 14:2, “In My Father’s house are many mansions; if it were not so, I would have told you. I go to prepare a place for you.”

He’s ready and waiting for the Family of God to come home.

 

 

When we were kids, we always got our Christmas tree the last day of school before Christmas, given to us by the school teachers. Every year for many years, we got a tree on Christmas Eve and left it up until New Year’s Day.

When I had my own home, I couldn’t get in the mood to decorate until Christmas Eve and I usually left my tree up until New Year’s Day. One year I even thought about turning my tree into a Valentine tree, a St Patrick’s tree, and an Easter tree, maybe even a 4^th of July tree.

Of course I love a real cedar Christmas tree. I used to buy a real tree every year, usually from the fire station or grocery store. The last few years that I bought a real tree, I got a 3 or 4-foot tall Scotch pine to set on a corner table.

I love the smell of a real Christmas tree, but about 5 years ago, I was tested for allergies and discovered I am allergic to cedar trees. I should have known. It seemed like I always had a cold, with a runny nose and sneezing around Christmas time each year. When I finally gave in and bought that first 6-foot tall artificial Christmas tree, I mysteriously didn’t get sick. As much as I love a real live Christmas tree, my health comes first.

Within the Christmas story is the story of the cross. God becoming flesh through Jesus Christ, the Son of God, born of a virgin, Mary—this is the beginning, but the end of the story is Christ on the tree, the cross of Calvary, giving Himself completely for the whole world.

“Because Christ also suffered for us,…^. who Himself bore our sins in His own body on the tree, that we, having died to sins, might live for righteousness—by whose stripes you were healed.” I Peter 2:21-24.

From the words of the old hymn, The Old Rugged Cross, written by George Bennard, (1873-1958) —  “So I’ll cherish the old rugged cross, till my trophies at last I lay down. I will cling to the old rugged cross, and exchange it some day for a crown.”

I’m sure all Mary wanted was to be left alone, so she could rest after the birth. She sure wasn’t ready for any company, much less strangers.  

However not long after she gave birth and wrapped the baby in the special clothing she had brought with her, the shepherds came looking for the baby that the angels had told them about. Shepherds lived with their sheep night and day, never shaved, seldom bathed. They were a rude and crude bunch of men. And they were wanting to look at her baby.  

Can you imagine what it must have been like for Mary, a teenager, to give birth without her mother or other women relatives, with only Joseph to help her, in the unclean surroundings of a barn? When the time came for the baby to be born, they were far from home, in Bethlehem.  

The miracle of Jesus’ birth has been told again and again, but it never grows old. The angel Gabriel announced it to Mary, the lowly little virgin girl, probably no more than 13 or 14 years old. telling her that the holy Child born to her would be the Son of God. The angel Gabriel said that Mary would “bring forth a song and shall call His name Jesus. He shall be great and shall be called the Son of the Highest.” Luke 1:31

Because she knew this Child was Messiah, Mary willingly shared Jesus from the moment of His birth, even with the most lowly workmen of society in those days, the shepherds. 

Baby Jesus was not hers to keep. He had come for the whole world.

 

 

She rode into town on a donkey, nine months pregnant. Her husband hadn’t wanted to make this trip, but it was a commandment by the government that each family go to the town of their ancestry to pay taxes, and since Joseph was a descendant of David, they had to go to Bethlehem.

Bethlehem was normally a tiny town, but with the influx of taxpayers, all the inns were full. Joseph must have knocked on every door in Bethlehem trying to find a place to spend the night.

Mary knew somehow that she would have the baby tonight, even though this was her first child. Within hours of the time that Joseph found them a place to stay in the stable, Mary delivered her first-born son, the baby Jesus.

As she held him in her arms, her mind went back to the day the angel Gabriel appear to her and said, “Behold you will conceive in your womb and bring forth a Son, and shall call His name JESUS. “ Luke 1:31

Jesus, what a precious name. Yet there were many men in Israel named Jesus, a common name, also called Joshua.

Jesus is the English version of the Greek word, “Iesous,” pronounced ‘ee-ay-sous’.

The Hebrew word Jesus, or Joshua means ‘Jehovah is salvation.’

Joshua in the Old Testament was a type of Jesus. He led the people of Israel, those who would follow him, over the Jordan River into the Promised Land, while Jesus led His People, those who accept Him as Savior and follow Him, into the Promised Land of salvation.

Yes, there might even have been other men named Jesus who lived in Israel, there is even one mentioned in the Bible, but there was only one Jesus who was born to a virgin Mary in Bethlehem that night, to fulfill the many prophecies of the Old Testament and the words of the angel Gabriel, the messenger angel sent from God.

There was only one Jesus who died on the cross for me and for you. It is Jesus of Nazareth, son of Mary, son of God, Emmanuel God with us, the Wonderful Counselor, the Prince of Peace, the King of Kings and Lord of Lord, Christ the Lord.

 

 

 

GOOD MEAL WITH THE LORD

The turkey is stuffed into the frig and the pumpkin bread that didn’t rise has been tossed out. We’re already wondering if we should diet between Thanksgiving and Christmas or just keep wracking up the calorie-count until New Year’s Day.

Daddy always complained, when we were getting ready to go fishing, “Why do you women always turn everything into a picnic? We’re only going fishing. Why do you women think everything revolves around food?”

All through the Bible we find stories involving a meal. Abraham entertained the 3 angels of God with a meal of beef, bread and butter, and milk to drink.

Hundreds of years later, the Israelites in Egypt were told by God to roast a lamb with bitter herbs and unleavened bread, the night of the first Passover, when God was preparing them to leave Egypt, where they were slaves. They were told to eat it all with their shoes on, ready to go at a moment’s notice.

All along the way on their journey across the wilderness on their way to the Promised Land, God provided for them, with fresh water and manna, the great heavenly food, and quail for meat. The Promised Land was described as a land that flows with milk and honey.

In the New Testament, Jesus often entertained. On two different occasions, Jesus fed thousands of people with 5 loafs of bread and 2 fish. Even the night that He was betrayed, Jesus had a banquet dinner for his 12 disciples, serving bread and wine.

Jesus told His disciples, “Do this in remembrance of me.” Luke 22:19. Jesus gave us a commandment that we should continue the practice of sharing bread and drink in His name, until He returns.

Then in Acts, after the first church was established, the disciples gathered together often.

“And they steadfastly persevered, devoting themselves constantly to the instruction and fellowship of the apostles, to the breaking of bread [including the Lord’s supper] and prayer.” Acts 2:42 AMP.

Some of the most important events in the Bible were centered around a meal.