WEDNESDAY October 9th
Well, it seems as if Christmas as come early as I have been sharing these devotions around the birth of Jesus, but why shouldn’t we celebrate his first arrival all year around! But today we are going to advance just a little with some more verses from Luke 2, firstly verse 40 and then verse 52
‘And the child grew and became strong, filled with wisdom. And the favour of God was upon him.’
‘And Jesus increased in wisdom and in stature and in favour with God and man.’
As much as we love to celebrate the good news that this baby had been born two-thousand years ago in the little town of Bethlehem, we also celebrate that he didn’t remain as a baby but as with all other babies he began to grow and to develop into manhood. He had come with a specific mission, that was to be the Saviour of the world, but at this point I want to add something else into the ring, he was going to become the Man who would be our representative in heaven. But to do so, he would need to move from being a baby to a man.
These two verses tell us that he did grow up, he did mature, he became strong, was filled with wisdom and increased in stature and the favour of God was upon him. There is something about what we read about Jesus here that should also be a picture of what should happen to each one of us as we are born again by the Spirit of God. We cannot and must not remain as babes, we need to mature, grow in spiritual stature, be filled with wisdom, become spiritually strong and we can also know the favour of God upon us.
Now, sandwiched in between these two verses is another verse which I want to highlight as well concerning Jesus and it is verse 49. It is linked to the account when Jesus at 12 years of age had gone to the temple with his parents, afterward they began the journey home and after a day’s journey Mary and Joseph had realised that Jesus was not with them, and after searching three days later they found him in the temple. We know the story, and after they had enquired of him as to what he was doing he answered ‘“Why were you looking for me? Did you not know that I must be in my Father’s house?” I actually much prefer the KJV here (Norman cheers), ‘How is it that ye sought me? wist ye not that I must be about my Father’s business?’
Jesus knew that what mattered more than anything else, even as a young lad was to be doing this Father’s business, that is fulfilling the will of God. What an example Jesus is to each one of us, as we begin our Christian journey, and as we continue our Christian journey, no matter how long we have been on it, no matter what we would consider to be our level of maturity, that the priority should be to be going about our heavenly Father’s business.