The Birth of Jesus- Matthew 1:18-25

"God show me what you want me to know;

Let me be the wise man and not the foolish man.
Allow me to not just read these word,
But give me a chance to put them into practice. Amen"

Well, its day two. I am hoping that you are following along with me in the "30 days with Jesus." Well everything has to start somehow. But I imagine that Joseph did not imagine starting his family like this. In verse 18 it said that they were pledged to be married but then he found out she was pregnant by the Holy Spirit. Dude! What is going on? Before you get married there is all kinds of hopes and expectations of starting a family with your future wife. It creates excitement. I sometimes wonder what Joseph was thinking before the angel came to him in verse 20.


Sometimes I imagine Joseph being even a little more confused after the angel appeared to him. Wait... my wife is pregnant by the Holy Spirit? And he will save the people from what? Wait a minute how can he do that? Wait a minute... I am sure he had so many questions and he had not so many answers. All he knew was that he just talked to an angel and that was good enough for him.


Many times in our lives God asks us to do things that we may not understand completely. We may have so many questions like Joseph. But God does not require us to understand why we are doing it but he requires us to obey him and do it. Sometimes is can be hard to do things we don't want to do but again, if God asked us what we wanted to do out world might be headed down the wrong path. In Colossians 3:23-24 Paul writes:

"Whatever you do, work at it with all your heart, as working for the Lord,
not for men, since you know that you will receive and inheritance from the Lord as a reward. It is the Lord Christ you are serving."

God, why are you challenging me so early in this thirty day journey?



RB



Day Two

Jesus Foretold- Isaiah 53

So, here we are on the first day of our "journey" together. Thirty days with Jesus. For the next thirty days as we read this together and try to understand together, before you read I want you to say this simple prayer with me:

"God show me what you want me to know;
Let me be the wise man and not the foolish man.
Allow me to not just read these word,
But give me a chance to put them into practice. Amen"

From the beginning of time, when Adam and Eve ate the fruit in the garden of Eden, God knew that he had to send Jesus to pay the price for their sin. But not just their sin, the sins of everyone who has ever lived and will ever live. Isaiah was a prophet of God, which meant that God gave him a message and he delivered it. In this case God was telling the future through Isaiah. He starts out in verse two by simply stating that Jesus was just as normal as the next guy. He was born and grew up normal. He had no glowing halo, instead he was completely human. In verses 2-9 Isaiah is talking about a Servant. Who is the Servant? Jesus! But remember, Jesus wasn't born yet. It is God talking through Isaiah. These verses are talking about the suffering that Jesus would go through in his life and why he was going to suffer. Look at verse 4 and 5. He was pierced and died because of our sins. Once this act has been completed, we receive the hope of being saved (salvation) through Jesus' death.

But as we know, the story does not end with Jesus dying. It ends with his resurrection. In verse 10 Isaiah talks about the plan of God for Jesus to die. Then he says that "he will see his offspring and prolong is days, and the LORD will prosper in his hand." Which means Jesus, after his death, will extend his days and will be rich through God. And finally in the second half of verse 12 he made a way for us to be "buddies" with God because he died and rose again.

This is going to be an interesting 30 days.

RB

Day one