"Do not be afraid, for behold, I bring you good tidings of great joy which will be to all people" (Luke 2:10 NKJV)Every time an angel appears, the first thing out of their mouth is "Don't be afraid." There was a little boy in a first-grade Christmas pageant who had one line: "It is I, be not afraid." But on the day of the pageant, he got nervous and said, "It's me, and I'm scared to death!"The ang...

"Then Mary said, 'Behold the maidservant of the Lord! Let it be to me according to your word.' And the angel departed from her" (Luke 1:38 NKJV)If we were planning the birth of the King of Kings, I highly doubt we would choose a teenage girl in Nazareth, a lowly village. We would find a royal family, a wealthy family that would provide support for the Chosen Messiah. Yet God's plan was to bypass t...

"You will seek Me and find Me, when you search for Me with all your heart" (Jeremiah 29:13 NKJV)In Matthew 2:1-12, the wise men were searching for Jesus, but really God was initiating the relationship with them. John 6:44 says, "No one comes to Me unless the Father Who sent Me draws them." No one seeks after God first - before you were searching for Him, He was wooing you to Himself. You must resp...

"And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we beheld His glory, the glory as of the only begotten of the Father, full of grace and truth" (John 1:14 NKJV)When John calls Jesus "the Word," he's describing expression - the expression of God. When we see Jesus, He is expressing Who God is. We use words to describe something invisible in our mind to put it into your mind. If I say "dog," you h...

"Behold, the virgin shall be with child, and bear a Son, and they shall call His name Immanuel, which is translated, 'God with us'" (Matthew 1:23 NKJV)Immanuel (or, Emmanuel) means "God with us," and this captures the heart of Christmas. Think about it - God could have remained distant from our struggles. He could have just shouted instructions from heaven or sent messengers with His commands. But...