Day of Praise: Pastor Chris

Fr, 12/27/13, 3rd Day of Christmas, "Day of Praise"

Matthew 2:11 - "And going into the house they saw the child with Mary his mother, and they fell down and worshiped him. Then, opening their treasures, they offered him gifts, gold and frankincense and myrrh."

Questions. Do you ever wonder? Wonder about your life? Why are you here? Does anyone even know? Does anyone really care? Where's your life going?

In today's verse, we hear of three gifts that are brought to the Christ child from only God knows how many Magi. We assume three Magi because there are three gifts, but the Bible doesn't actually say. What we do understand though is that three gifts tell us about the baby:

1) Gold means he's royalty, King of kings;
2) Frankincense means he's divine, that we should pray to him; and

3) Myrrh means he'll need embalming since he's going to die for us and our sin.

So too, being made in the image of God, we hear answers to our questions from God's Word in the Bible through the three gifts:

1) Gold means we're royalty; everyone has a prominent, important role in the world, which we learn more about as we seek the Word and counsel of our Father God in heaven;

2) Frankincense means we're attractive; people will be drawn to us, and specifically to the Christ in us, when Christ dwells in us through faith; we're then given to do our royal role, which is to point those drawn to us beyond ourselves; we're to point them to Jesus Christ;

3) Myrrh means we have a true nature; our self-securing sin nature is what we sell out for because we don't trust God; our true nature, which is restored through faith in Jesus, is to pour out ourselves so that others instead may live, fulfilling Jesus's words, "in losing your life, you find it."

Through three gifts, God has answers to our questions. Think about it.

Praise God!

(For an archive of "Day of Praise," please see the link to "Day of Praise" at my daughter Calley's blog, www.voguemind.blogspot.com)
Pastor Chris
"The gospel is the story of Jesus [what God's only Son has done for us that we can't do for ourselves], spoken as a promise." - Robert Jenson