HONORING GOD,
JESUS, AND EACH OTHER
At a Christmas party many years ago, I was honored with a
special hardhat and a $1000 travel voucher, for ten years of continuous service
as a mural painter and faux finisher. I had no idea I was getting it, so the
blessing was especially sweet.
Since my best friend Jane passed away recently, I was
thinking a lot about how to honor her life. I wanted to do something to honor her
for being such a blessing to me all those years we were roommates and best
friends.
She carried many spiritual anointings that I benefitted
from, and I felt that God was saying to me that He didn’t want those anointings
to be lost to the world. So, I felt the best way to honor Jane would be to make
sure the wonderful anointings she had didn’t go missing, so I asked God: “Could
I have a double portion of Jane’s anointings like You gave Elisha when Elijah
passed away?” And He showed me that His answer was “Yes, you can!”
I was astonished, but within just a day or so after I
asked, I found that I was exhibiting some spiritual anointings that I’d never
experienced before. I had new wisdom in the natural and the spiritual, like
Jane did. I had the ability to speak easily “off the cuff”; it just rolled out,
where as before, I was a person who mulled things over and had difficulty
speaking clearly and easily on the spur of the moment. But Jane could.
Jane had a very close relationship with God that she
called “the portal.” She said God would open the windows of Heaven, like it
says in Malachi 3:10 (the portal), and He would give her something to pray
about. She immediately prayed it back to Him through the open portal, and
almost immediately the answer came—within a day or two, at most, a week! I’ve
been experiencing that like an automatic rifle going off with so many rounds so
fast I can barely keep up!! There’s more, and I know it sounds a little weird,
but the things of God that sound weird are often the supernatural things that
He has already told us about in His Word, but maybe we thought that they couldn’t
happen to us. But they do!
The shepherds in the hills around Bethlehem got an
amazing visitation by a host of angels. They were honored for their believing
in the coming Messiah, and the angels honored them by telling them to go and
see for themselves. They were among the very first to witness the Christ child!
The shepherds went to honor God after they experienced
the visitation of the angels. Then God honored them, bringing them into the
presence of Mary, Joseph, and the baby who was the one prophesied about
throughout the Old Testament as the Messiah, the son of God coming into the
world to save those who would believe.
The shepherds were “abiding in the field, keeping watch
over their flock by night” (Luke 2:8). The angel of the Lord came and told them
that they were in the right place at the right time and it was to them that
this blessing had come.
How often are we going about our normal routines,
endeavoring to do God’s will the best we can, and all of a sudden, we meet
someone new who really blesses our lives? Or we’re inspired to get in a certain
grocery line and end up blessing a total stranger? We end up in the right place
at the right time to either be blessed or be a blessing. Hebrews 13:2 even
tells us we should “be not forgetful to entertain strangers: for thereby
some have entertained angels unawares.”
That’s what happened to the shepherds. They were in the
hills by Bethlehem and that’s where God wanted them. The angel of God found
them and told them the good news. “And, lo, the angel of the Lord came upon
them, and the glory of the Lord shone round about them: and they were sore
afraid. And the angel said unto them, Fear not:
for, behold, I bring you good tidings of great joy, which shall be to all
people. For unto you is born this day in the city of David a Savior, which is
Christ the Lord” (Luke 2: 9-11).
This event brought “glory to God in the highest, and on
earth peace, good will toward men” (v.14). The shepherds went down into the
city of Bethlehem to witness this for themselves.
The Bible doesn’t say anything about them honoring Jesus
with physical gifts like the wise men did later on, but the shepherds honored
Jesus by telling people what the angel told them and what they actually
witnessed themselves. That’s how they honored God—by telling other people about
the great things God did and that they had witnessed the baby who was the
prophesied Messiah!
“And when they [the shepherds] had seen it, they made
known abroad the saying which was told them concerning this child. And
all they that heard it wondered at those things which were told them by the
shepherds. And the shepherds returned, glorifying and praising God for all
the things that they had heard and seen, as it was told unto them” (Luke 2:
17,18 and 20).
Gift-giving originated with God too. Right after God
created Adam, He gave him a gift. “And the Lord God planted a garden
eastward in Eden; and there he put the man whom he had formed. And out of the
ground made the Lord God to grow every tree that is pleasant to the sight, and good
for food; the tree of life also in the midst of the garden, and the tree of
knowledge of good and evil” (Gen. 2: 8-9).
The idea of honoring God and others, came straight from
our creator and has happily invaded all cultures of the world.
This Christmas let’s think about honoring each with our
gifts and our respect. And most of all, let’s give some special attention to
how we can honor God and our Savior, Christ the Lord.
Have a wonderful Christmas!
Love, Carolyn
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