Category: Devotionals

Heaven must have been lonely without Jesus. For nine months, the anticipation had been building in heaven.

The angels had watched and waited, knowing Jesus was being nurtured and protected by Mary’s physical body until that moment when He would be born, as the Old Testament prophets of God had foretold hundreds of years before.

The angels must have marveled at God’s plan, for God to become man. It was beyond their comprehension.

Who would have ever believed that the Son of God, Maker of the Universe, would stoop so low as to become a human being? The Creator became the created. The Master became the slave. The Teacher became the student. God became man.

Jesus laid aside all His divine power when He willingly accepted the body of a human baby, so the results of God’s plan rested in the arms of a young girl. The destiny of the whole human race depended on a peasant girl named Mary and her husband Joseph. She nestled the Son of God in her arms and cared for him as every mother does.

All heaven rejoiced on the night Jesus was born. The plan had begun. Step one was accomplished. We know now how it all turned out. Jesus was born, lived a perfect life, died, and rose again to save the world from sin.

Luke 2:13-14, And suddenly there was with the angel a multitude of the heavenly host praising God and saying: “Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace, goodwill toward men.”

We rejoice with the angels as we once again celebrate the birth of Jesus Christ, the Savior of the world.

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

In Luke 1:31 the Angel Gabriel said that Mary would “bring forth a son and shall call His name Jesus. He shall be great and shall be called the Son of the Highest.”

An angel told Joseph, her fiance, in a dream to take Mary as his wife, because the Child she was carrying was the Son of God. That could only mean one thing to Joseph, a Jewish man–this baby would be Messiah, the Christ.

The shepherds told Mary and Joseph about the angels who had appeared to announce Jesus’ birth. In turn, Mary and Joseph had a story to tell the shepherd about angels appearing to them.

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

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

 

I’m thankful for a warm house, with electricity and running water and two bathrooms; heat in the winter and air conditioning in the summer; nice but not new furniture, mattresses and good bedding; way too many clothes in walk-in closets; books and magazines and newspapers and Bibles of every translation.

I am thankful for vehicles, in good condition, even though they are not new.

I am thankful for a job I love working on computers, and for the privilege which I also love of writing devotionals, other stories, and articles for publication. I am thankful for a retirement from a job of 32 years where I made many friends and received so much more than I gave, although I did earn my paycheck.

I am thankful for freedom to worship from my heart. I am thankful for the Pilgrims, the pioneers, and the founders of our country who paved the way for us to live a life of freedom in the United States of America.

I hope you all have full tummies every day of the year. And I wish you joy and the experience of knowing that you won’t die if your stomach growls from being hungry enough to lose a few pounds this year.

I hope everyone had a wonderful Thanksgiving Day weekend with family and friends and had plenty to eat and plenty leftover to fill the frig and freezer. I hope you ate till you were too full.

I hope everyone enjoyed their favorite ballgame or computer game or phone game and visit with their families.

I hope you smiled when they brought out the camera to take family pictures.

And I hope you said grace at the table and gave thanks to God before you started eating the Thanksgiving turkey.

I am thankful for you, my readers, and I want for you what Paul wanted for his fellow Christians in 3^rd John verse 2, “Beloved, I pray that you may prosper in all things and be in health, just as your soul prospers.”

My mother gave me my Uncle Otis’ crank wall phone recently. It’s a wooden box just like the ones you see in the movies—hangs on the wall with a handle you turn, an earpiece, and a mouthpiece. I remember being fascinated with it when I saw it hanging on his wall in Albuquerque in 1958 when we stopped at his home on our way to California. It has been adapted to use as a dialtone phone. That phone is at least 60 years old.

I have my grandmother’s black dial desk phone too, with the clear plastic label in the center of the dial with her phone number neatly typed on it. She used it right up until she passed away in 1985. That phone is at least 50 years old.

I still have my own blue Slimline phone, (not the princess phone—how I wish I still had that one) which I keep in the bedroom. I don’t keep it hooked up, since it has a loud ringer which can’t be turned off. That phone is about 30 years old. (The princess phone would be over 40.)

I just love these old phones. I have a hard times parting with them. We are now a throw-away society. It costs as much to fix something as to buy a new one.

If I were God, I would have been sorely tempted to discard Adam and Eve after they sinned.  After all, they were the only human beings alive. God could have easily created a new couple to take their place, and start all over with His plan, but He couldn’t do it. He created them Himself out of the love in His heart, and, even when they failed, He had a plan to redeem them.

Ephesians 1:4 The Message Bible says, “Long before he laid down earth’s foundations, he had us in mind, had settled on us as the focus of his love, to be made whole and holy by his love.”

Before He create the world, God in love had you and me on His mind

I learned about Heaven and angels and Jesus when I was a little girl in Sunday school. We sang songs about Heaven, so I have always known that Heaven is real.

“I’m going to Heaven, I’m going there when I die
I’m going to Heaven in the sweet, sweet bye and bye
So angels place my order For a mansion and a crown
and in that Book up yonder Just write my full name down.”

“Heaven, happy home above, Heaven, land of peace and love
Oh, it makes me feel like traveling on
Heaven, eternal, Heaven, supernal
I’m so glad that it’s real.”

It is like getting on an airplane bound for Ireland. I have never been to Ireland. I know it exists because I studied geography in school. I have heard of people from Ireland. In fact, my ancestors were probably from Ireland (and Scotland and England.) I’d love to go to Ireland some day and visit the countryside where my ancestors lived and listen to the people speak Gaelic, the Irish language or English with an Irish brogue. But I have never been to Ireland, so I must take it on faith that Ireland actually exists.

I have never been to Heaven, but I’ve been to Oklahoma. I was born in Oklahoma. I’ve lived in Oklahoma all my life. Some people think Oklahoma is cowboys and Indians, oil derricks, flat plains and the Dust Bowl. But Oklahoma around Vinita is hills and valleys, Grand Lake, the tail end of the Ozarks out of Missouri and Arkansas, lush hay fields and cattle ranches. Oklahoma has a wide range of environments.

Heaven is as real as Ireland and Oklahoma. One day, like Paul, I will say, “The time of my departure is at hand.” 2 Timothy 4:6, then I will step out of Oklahoma and into Heaven.

The door to my airplane will close, the airplane will taxi down the runway, lift off and fly away, and when the door opens, I will be in Heaven.

“Lavon, you are not in Oklahoma anymore,” the Lord will say as He welcomes me Home to the Country of Heaven.

Who’s your best friend? In high school, there was a gang of us that hung around together. About five of us, including my sister, went everywhere together. Sandy got her car first, and I got mine soon after, and we transported all our friends to ball games and “draggin’ Main.”

I remember the first time I ever met Sandy. I was in the sixth grade and she transferred to Vinita, Ok. School from Big Cabin school. I was friendly to this new girl in school and after that Sandy and I spent a lot of hours together. She lived in Ft Worth for many years and I didn’t see her very often but our roots go way back to the sixth grade in 1961. She recently moved back to this area and we saw each other for the first time in several years.

I have many best friends now—my husband, my daughter and son, and my mother and my sisters. I have several friends from the past I don’t see very often who I am close to also. As soon as we get together, it is just like we have never been apart.

 I know people think you can only have one best friend, but answer me this: how do you narrow it down to only one?

 “A man that hath friends must show himself friendly: and there is a friend that sticketh closer than a brother.” Proverbs 18:24.

I looked this up in the Hebrew and the first word “friend” means companion (and even husband) and the second word “friend” is a different word that means “someone you love like a relative.” This means a friend that you love better than some of your kinfolks. I have some friends like that.

Jesus is the Friend that sticks closer than a brother. He said he would never leave me or forsake me, that he would go with me till the end of the world.

He is my Savior, my Lord, my Boss, my Master, my Mentor, My Councilor, my Psychiatrist, my Comforter, my Best Friend.

If Jesus was the only friend I ever had, He would sure be more than enough.