Treasured Truth

Joy is tied to the birth of Jesus.  The Gospel of Luke says that there would be tidings of great joy to the world at Christmas. So, as we celebrate our Savior’s birth, our celebration should be motivated by and filled with joy!

When we really think about Christmas, we should gain a whole new perspective.  Pastor Ford reminds us that God invaded human history when Jesus was born.  That should give us a whole new perspective.  He came the first time.  So, we know He’s going to come the second time.  We ought to be living like we know that He’s coming again.

As we continue to look at the miracles of Jesus, we see that there were crowds of people in and around Galilee, who witnessed these miracles take place.  They were impressed by what Jesus was doing, but they still weren’t placing their faith in the right place.  They were believing in His power, but they weren’t yet believing in His person.  See what kind of difference that makes on today’s Treasured Truth.

There is a certain progression to faith that each of us undergoes in order for our faith to grow.  Often, we will see that God places us in situations that cultivate that progression and cause our faith to grow unexpectedly, because we have to rely on Him to help us through the situation in which we find He has placed us.

Today we’ll see how faith can grow.  And that wherever you are in your faith walk right now, you don’t want to stay there.  Because, according to Pastor Ford, you’re either going forward or you’re going backwards, but you’re never standing still when it comes to your faith journey.

As we continue to study the passage that tells us about how Jesus turned water into wine, Pastor Ford wants us to consider this—What are we doing that sets us up for the miracle that we’ve been asking for?  Are we walking in the direction of the miracle that we’ve been seeking?

The people at the wedding in Cana obeyed Jesus when He instructed them to fill the water pots with water. Pastor Ford will explain that their obedience was cooperative, meaning, they played a part in the miracle!  In other words, they did what they could do so that Jesus could do what they couldn’t do.  And that’s because God is never going to do for us what we should be doing for ourselves.

It’s easy to fall into the mindset that Christmas is just about the gifts and the celebrations.  But Christmas is really about the Christ Who came and took the center stage of history.  It’s about God being born as a baby, bringing comfort and conversion to all mankind.

When we consider Jesus’ all sufficient power and how He might choose to work in our lives, we know that He can work things out for us, but we don’t really understand how.  Pastor Ford explains that lack of understanding can cause us to have a lack of faith sometimes.  But we need to trust that Jesus is going to turn our obstacle into an opportunity.  And, we need to obey Him, even though what He’s doing doesn’t make sense to us.

Is Jesus your first response or is He your last resort?  Do you run to Him?  Why do we need to run to Him?  Because as the Bible explains, He is able to do exceedingly and abundantly above all that we could ask or think according to His might working power in us!