Tuesday, December 22, 2020
"But
as for you, Bethlehem Ephrathah, Too
little to be among the clans of Judah, from you One will go forth for Me to be
ruler in Israel. His goings forth are from long ago, from the days of
eternity.” Therefore He will give them up
until the time when she who is in labor has borne a child. Then the remainder
of His brethren will return to the sons of Israel. And He will arise and shepherd His flock in the strength of the
LORD, in the majesty of the name of the LORD His God. And they will remain,
because at that time He will be great to the ends of the earth. This One will be our peace.
Micah 5:2-5
God's Best Gift in
the Worst Times
On Hampton Plantation in coastal South Carolina there used to live an elderly
sharecropper, illiterate but very wise. One of his favorite sayings was this: If you ain’t in trouble, your prayers ain’t
got no suction.” Translation: It is
our desperation that increases our determination to draw God to us in time of
trouble.
The Bible declares that our extremity is God’s opportunity.
God is most likely to be found at your wit’s end, just when you need Him most,
when you have run out of answers and almost out of hope.
Consider the great prophets of the Old Testament: Jeremiah,
Ezekiel, Amos, Hosea, and Isaiah. These were not prosperity prophets. No, they
were aroused by God in times of crisis, even of national disaster.
Jesus did not visit this planet when we became good enough
to receive him. “While
we were yet sinners,” says the Bible, “Christ died for the ungodly.” He
faced us at our worst, and loved us anyway, all the way to a cross.
What does this mean for you and me in this season? It means
this: Those who enter this holy season
with the greatest needs stand the best chance of encountering the Messiah.
After all, Jesus the Great Physician did not come to heal
the healthy but the sick. His mission is not to round up the pious, but to seek
and to save the lost. If you are hurting
or lost or spiritually hungry this December, the odds are very great that you
could encounter the Messiah.
What causes me to believe this? I’ll tell you. I got it
straight from an Old Testament prophet named Micah. Seven hundred years before Jesus was born in
Bethlehem, Micah was called by God to speak his word to the nation of Judah.
Though just a simple farmer, he was utterly fearless.
The national situation was awful: morals were low, crime was
rampant, the government was decadent, the courts were corrupt, most organized
religion was formalistic and cold, and the dominant religion was materialism.
Yes, that could be a description of contemporary America, but actually I’m
talking about Judah in 700 B.C.
To make matters worse, Judah was a tiny nation precariously
perched between two hostile superpowers--Assyria and Egypt. The nation had
about as much security as a fly in a room full of lizards. Insecurity, weakness and even hopelessness
plagued the nation. At that critical
moment, Micah lambasted the nation’s sin and called for repentance.
But he did much more
than that. Inspired by God, he looked out into the future and said: A Messiah will be born in tiny Bethlehem.
God is going to send someone great to us. So, don’t despair. God has good news
coming!
For
God did not send the Son into the world to judge the world,
but that the world
might be saved through Him. John 3:17
