My Devotionals

For we are God’s handiwork, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do. (Ephesians 2:10)

This past week, we have celebrated the arrival of the Promised One. We have seen and worshipped him. And because of him, our lives are now and forever changed.

But, as we have spent time in Bethlehem, pondering this great event, we must now start out on a new journey. A journey that will ultimately lead us to Jerusalem. For here, Jesus will complete the task for which he was born. In Jerusalem, on the hill of the skull, the real surprise of God’s great rescue plan will be revealed. Here, the Promised One will die and rise again. Sin, loss, the grave, and the enemy will all be defeated. God will have won the victory and death will have been swallowed up, bringing new life to us all!

And with this new life comes a new season of anticipation. We live now in expectation of Jesus’s second coming. We wait and hope for his arrival once more to...

In those days Caesar Augustus issued a decree that a census should be taken of the entire Roman world. (This was the first census that took place while Quirinius was governor of Syria.) And everyone went to their own town to register. So Joseph also went up from the town of Nazareth in Galilee to Judea, to Bethlehem the town of David, because he belonged to the house and line of David. He went there to register with Mary, who was pledged to be married to him and was expecting a child. While they were there, the time came for the baby to be born, and she gave birth to her firstborn, a son. She wrapped him in cloths and placed him in a manger, because there was no guest room available for them. And there were shepherds living out in the fields nearby, keeping watch over their flocks at night. An angel of the Lord appeared to them, and the glory of the Lord shone around them, and they were terrified. But the angel said to them, “Do not be afraid. I bring you good news that will...

But you, Bethlehem Ephrathah, though you are small among the clans of Judah, out of you will come for me one who will be ruler over Israel, whose origins are from of old, from ancient times. Therefore Israel will be abandoned until the time when she who is in labor bears a son, and the rest of his brothers return to join the Israelites. He will stand and shepherd his flock in the strength of the Lord, in the majesty of the name of the Lord his God. And they will live securely, for then his greatness will reach to the ends of the earth. And he will be our peace. (Micah 5:2-5)

We all feel the weight of the loss that took place in the garden so long ago. In every aspect of our lives—work, play, friendships, family, dreams, and desires—we experience the sense that things just aren’t the way they were meant to be.

Conflict with co-workers deters our most valiant efforts at doing what we think is right and best. Anxiety overtakes us when we find ourselves striving to...

To Adam he said, “Because you listened to your wife and ate fruit from the tree about which I commanded you, ‘You must not eat from it,’ “Cursed is the ground because of you; through painful toil you will eat food from it all the days of your life. It will produce thorns and thistles for you, and you will eat the plants of the field. By the sweat of your brow you will eat your food until you return to the ground, since from it you were taken; for dust you are and to dust you will return.” Adam named his wife Eve, because she would become the mother of all the living. The Lord God made garments of skin for Adam and his wife and clothed them. And the Lord God said, “The man has now become like one of us, knowing good and evil. He must not be allowed to reach out his hand and take also from the tree of life and eat, and live forever.” So the Lord God banished him from the Garden of Eden to work the ground from which he had been taken. After he...