Wow, it's a lot of work staging your house for pictures. I'm gonna tell you right now, my house DOES NOT look like what the pictures look like. 

There is always a mound of mail on the kitchen island.

There's a 3 foot pile of Son #4's knapsack, clothes, shoes in a corner of the hallway.

I take care of a fifteen month old so there are toys everywhere!!!

So my weekend was full of cleaning and organizing and hiding all the stuff and then the fun part…..DECORATING!

Please go see my Christmas Home Tour if that kind of thing interests you. I'd love for you to visit!

Continuing on with "The Meaning of Christmas" series, today I'd like to talk about the wise men.

Matthew 2 New International Reader's Version (NIRV)

The Wise Men Visit Jesus

2 Jesus was born in Bethlehem in Judea. This happened while Herod was king of Judea. After Jesus’ birth, Wise Men from the east came to Jerusalem. 2 They asked, “Where is the child who has been born to be king of the Jews? We saw his star when it rose. Now we have come to worship him.”

3 When King Herod heard about it, he was very upset. Everyone in Jerusalem was troubled too. 4 So Herod called together all the chief priests of the people. He also called the teachers of the law. He asked them where the Messiah was going to be born. 5 “In Bethlehem in Judea,” they replied. “This is what the prophet has written. He said,

7 Then Herod secretly called for the Wise Men. He found out from them exactly when the star had appeared. 8 He sent them to Bethlehem. He said, “Go and search carefully for the child. As soon as you find him, report it to me. Then I can go and worship him too.”

9 After the Wise Men had listened to the king, they went on their way. The star they had seen when it rose went ahead of them. It finally stopped over the place where the child was. 10 When they saw the star, they were filled with joy.11 The Wise Men went to the house. There they saw the child with his mother Mary. They bowed down and worshiped him. Then they opened their treasures. They gave him gold, frankincense and myrrh. 12 But God warned them in a dream not to go back to Herod. So they returned to their country on a different road.

The wise men were believed to have studied the Old Testament and knew about the writings of Daniel 9:24-27 where it says "the Anointed One" will come. So they believed the Messiah was coming and sought him out. They came from the East which is believed to be Persia so they traveled approximately 800 miles. A star directed them to Bethlehem. They notified King Herod of their visit (I'll talk about King Herod in another post). He wanted them to report what they found back to him. 

The star comes back into the story. How cool is that? A group of wise men following a star in the sky to find Jesus.

When they saw the star they were filled with joy. Then they saw the boy(he was believed to be about two years old) and bowed down and worshipped him. They knew exactly who this child was. They knew He was the Son of God.

They brought the baby very expensive gifts because they knew the importance of the child.

They were warned by God in a dream not to tell King Herod about the child so they obeyed God and defied the king.

It takes a lot of faith to:

believe the Word of God that a Savior was coming,

to follow a star hundreds of miles to the city of Bethlehem,

to believe that a young two year old boy was the Son of God,

and to obey God and defy the King.

As believers today, do we have the faith to:

believe the Word of God that the Savior is coming again,

to follow wherever God leads us,

to believe that 2000 years ago, the first Christmas was the coming of the Son of God,

and to obey the Word of God in a world that says we're not allowed to pray, carry a Bible to school, say the word "Christmas" or to display a nativity scene in a public place?

Next post, I'll talk about King Herod. He wasn't a very nice king.

Love y'all,

 

Linda