¡Movimiento Es Vida!

Dear Friends,

In less than two weeks we will celebrate the birth of the One who brought us salvation. As I’ve pondered that over the past few days, I’ve had one question that keeps rattling around in my mind: “How should we do that?” How should we respond to the fact that Jesus - our Savior - was born?”

Now, I know that for some of you more theologically-minded folks, this is a really big question. So you probably can’t figure out why I would choose to bring it up in a brief, email devotional. And I will agree that, in some respects, the answer to the question of how we should respond to our Savior being born can be far-reaching in its implications. But at the same time, the answer can be very simple - and it’s actually evident as we read about two of the primary groups of people in the original Christmas story: the shepherds and the Wise Men.

If we strip away the specific details around the stories of the shepherds and the Wise Men, what we’ll see is that they both responded to the news of Christ’s birth by doing three things. First, they left what they were doing and moved towards Christ. Second, when they found Christ, they humbled themselves and worshipped Him. Third, they let their encounter with Christ change what they were doing. For example, the Wise Men changed their plans for traveling home in order to avoid getting caught up in Herod’s sinful plans; and the Shepherds told everyone about what they had experienced. Whatever their focus and attitude was before their encounter, it was different after meeting the Christ child. Luke 2:20 tells us they went back to their fields “praising God for all they had seen”.

I really think that it’s in the simplicity of those three actions that we find the answer to the question of how we should respond to the fact that Christ was born. We need to move towards Jesus, humble ourselves and worship Him, and let our encounter with Him change the way we think and live.

So as we get ready to celebrate the birth of our Savior on December 25th, let’s follow the example the Wise Men and shepherds set for us. Let’s choose to look beyond all the distractions of this season, and instead, focus on the birth of our Savior - letting the significance of this event draw us to Him so we can fully worship and praise Him for all He’s done.

Amen?

Daniel