Author: Nathaniel Colt

Read: Philippians 2:5-11

When you pray, how do you picture the God who listens?

What does God look like? It’s a question as old as time. Throughout Scripture, God is represented in many ways. A father and a fire. A whirlwind and a whisper. Like a mighty warrior, He attacks evil. Like a mother hen, He shelters His chicks under His wings. He is feared, adored and worshiped.

On a night long ago, Mary may have studied the face of her newborn boy.

She was exhausted, likely still in pain from childbirth. She was perhaps the first to glimpse a profound truth: God had emptied himself of His divine qualities, choosing to take on weak, flawed human flesh and to dwell among us.

What a journey! He would endure heat, hunger and thirst. He would experience the range of emotions, encounters and experiences that define the human condition.

Why did God choose this way to redeem us? He wants us to know that He understands how we feel. He has experienced what we experience, yet He serves us with the full heart and character of the Creator. He would say it to His followers: “Whoever has seen me has seen the Father” (John 14:9).

What does God look like? Look to Jesus, and you will know.

Read: Esther 4:12-17; Hebrews 4:15-16

What’s the most nervous you’ve ever been? The night of your big trumpet solo? The morning of the regional track meet? It takes guts to face those big moments.

Joseph and Mary were probably nervous, too. They had to travel far from their home, with Mary ready to deliver her child. Then when they arrived in Bethlehem, they were unable to find a decent place to stay. They must have been nervous when Mary went into labor—giving birth to a child, their first, who was the Savior of the world.

Another woman, many centuries before, also faced a big moment. The young queen Esther had a much bigger moment than what most of us will ever face. Visiting the king without being summoned was an offense punishable by death in the days of King Ahasuerus—even for the queen. But the lives of many were at stake. So she put on her royal robes and walked bravely into the king’s court to begin a desperate plan to save her people. It began with her asking the king to attend a special banquet (Esther 5:4).

This was not a social dinner. She wanted to have the king’s ear, to inform him of an evil plot that threatened the existence of her family and her people. Her plan succeeded. Esther helped the king recognize that his right-hand man was working in secret to exterminate the Jews.

Esther risked her life to save the people of Israel from physical death, showing us, long before the time of Jesus, that one person’s courage and sacrifice can save millions..

Read: Joshua 1:1-9

Has anyone ever told you how you got your name? Does it have a special meaning or relevance in your family?

When an angel informed Joseph that Mary’s baby already had a name, he was likely surprised.

“You shall call his name Jesus,” the angel instructed him. “For he will save his people from their sins” (Matthew 1:21).

Jesus? As in . . . Joshua? Yahweh is Savior? To Jews of the day, it was a well-known name. And it told Joseph something about why the baby would be important. The name linked Jesus to a major figure in the long story of God’s work to redeem His people.

Joseph would have undoubtedly remembered all the old accounts of Joshua, one of Israel’s great heroes. Joshua was a gifted leader, a commander of Israel’s army.

He served as Moses’ assistant governing Israel, and Moses later anointed him to take over the job. Joshua never lost faith in the Lord’s promise to give the Promised Land to the Israelites, and so God used Joshua to save His people and bring them into that land.

A good name for a savior! Joshua, though flawed, led God’s people into the land He’d promised. The greater Joshua, the perfect Jesus Christ, leads us to a land where there is no suffering or pain, a place where we will dwell forever in God’s presence.

Read: Genesis 22:1-14; 1 Peter 4:13

Remember when your teacher would read off the attendance list, and when your name was called, you responded, “Here”?

That was how Abraham responded one day when God called his name. “Here I am,” Abraham said. His words were clear: I am available.

But Abraham certainly couldn’t have been eager to accomplish the task God had for him: “Take your son, your only son Isaac, whom you love, and go to the land of Moriah, and offer him there as a burnt offering.”

Yet Abraham proceeded to obey the Lord, making preparations for the sacrifice.

Many have wondered what he was thinking at the time. Why would God want his son dead? Wasn’t Isaac the start of Abraham’s many descendants whom God had promised him?

As the two climbed into the hills, Isaac carrying the wood strapped to his back, the boy asked what animal they would use for the sacrifice. “God will provide . . . the lamb,” Abraham said.

And the Lord did indeed provide a sacrifice, a ram caught in the thicket. Many centuries later, God again provided a sacrifice, a Lamb—in the form of a baby. He sent His only Son to earth to save humankind from death. That baby is the Lamb of God. We celebrate His birth on Christmas Day.

Read: Romans 7:7-12

Have you ever done the exact thing a parent or teacher told you not to do?

When we read the account in Genesis 3 of humanity’s first sin, which Adam and Eve gave in to, we see their swift and sorrowful expulsion from the Garden of Eden, an immediate separation from God’s presence. Eden was the place where people’s relationship with God flourished. It was where the Creator and His creation walked together in the cool of the evening (Genesis 3:8). No more could this be.

God was pure, and humans were impure. They simply couldn’t be together.

Yet God still cared. And loved. He used animal skins to clothe Adam and Eve, covering their nakedness and their shame. The death of the animals to provide their skins were the world’s first sacrifice to cover a sin, a glimpse at the final sacrifice Jesus paid to cover the price for the sins of the whole world. And it all started when He put on human skin to clothe himself and came to earth.

Without such a sacrifice to atone for sin, we might live eternally separated from God. But God is love (1 John 4:8); Christ’s sacrifice bridges the gap. With His birth, death and resurrection, He provided the way for us to come back into a relationship with Him.

Read: Luke 1:26-38, 46-55

How would you respond if a shining angel of God came to your home? What if he told you the plans and expectations you had for your life would be altered forever?

When Mary was told that she was going to have a baby, she was puzzled. In human terms, there was no way she could be pregnant.

“How can this be?” she asked.

Mary needed an explanation on how this defiance of natural law could work. And when the angel clarified, she surrendered herself to God, trusting that His plan for her life was best (Luke 1:46-55). Indeed, it’s likely the Lord chose Mary because of her great faith and her servant’s heart. God wanted to work through someone like her because her child would grow to offer His life in the greatest act of servanthood the universe had ever seen.

And Mary would live to see it all—everything from her son’s beautiful beginning to His violent death. His miraculous ministry, His arrest and trial, His death on the Cross that covered the sins of all, and His resurrected form. Mary couldn’t have known all the details about God’s design to redeem the world, but she knew that He was good and that His plans were trustworthy.

Read: 2 Samuel 12:13-25; Romans 8:28

King David and Bathsheba, a married woman, had an affair. It was not just a bad choice on their part. This affair sparked a storm of tragedy. David arranged to have Bathsheba’s husband murdered, and their child from the affair died shortly after he was born.

Yet even in this dark valley, God did not forget Bathsheba. Over time and after repentance, she had more children, and her son Solomon became one of the greatest kings in Israel’s history, the wisest ruler in all the land. Mary and Joseph are both descendants of David and Bathsheba, one through Solomon and one through another son, Nathan.

When Mary gave birth to baby Jesus, she may not have known that she, too, was giving birth to a king of the Jews, who is the King of all kings. What a great reminder that even in the darkness of sin and death, we can repent, and God can weave our imperfect stories into a complex and beautiful tapestry of redemption for ourselves and others.

Read: 1 Kings 3:5-13; Ecclesiastes 12:11-14; John 10:10

What if you could put literally anything on your Christmas wish list, and you were assured that you would actually receive it? Would you use that once-in-a-lifetime chance to become a better person—or just become better off? God gave a similar opportunity to Solomon when he became Israel’s new king:

“Ask for whatever you want me to give you” (1 Kings 3:5, NIV).

Many new rulers might have asked for more land or storage buildings full of gold. But Solomon recognized that the people of Israel were not his—they were the Lord’s. And, in a way, Israel’s territory wasn’t really his, either. It had been expanded and protected through the battles his father, King David, had fought and won.

So Solomon knew he would need great wisdom to manage the people and possessions God had entrusted to him. And that’s what he asked for: wisdom to do right.

God was pleased by the request, so He gave Solomon both remarkable wisdom and incredible wealth. But as the years of King Solomon’s reign passed, the wealth and power he had attained corrupted him, also hurting his relationship with God. Solomon realized that the things he valued were ultimately meaningless without doing right in God’s eyes.

But God brought Good News. Many centuries after Solomon’s life, his descendant Jesus arrived. Jesus entered our world of meaningless pursuits and showed us the way to His kingdom—an abundant life of joy and peace for those who follow Him..