and how His Spirit will lead us. We can read:
14 For as many as are led by the Spirit of God, these are sons of God.
15 For you did not receive the spirit of bondage again to fear, but you received the Spirit of adoption by whom we cry out, "Abba, Father."
The Spirit of adoption. Brought into the family of God and fellowship with Him. That is powerful. God is calling to each of us and desires to bring us into a deeper, closer walk with Himself. When we identify that God is working in our lives, we can be careful to give Him praise and follow Him as He leads. He is communicating truth to our spirits, consistent with His Word, and we can put ourselves in a position to hear what He is saying.
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We are walking together through the Faith Radio Advent Guide, 25: A Christmas Advent-ure, and we have arrived on Day 7. Each day has a corresponding Christmas song, a Scripture verse or passage, and a lyric from the song; you can download it free at FaithRadio.org. Those guides are available, along with our 7-foot Christmas crosses and Christmas magnets, at our Montgomery studios.
Today, we use Do You Hear What I Hear as a springboard to think about the importance of receiving the message that God is trying to get across to us. In the song, the Christmas star, a song in the skies, and the presence of the Christ Child are the key elements. And, each of these remind us of how God is communicating with His people. The star led the Magi, the Wise Men, to Bethlehem, so that they would find Jesus. The angels spoke to the shepherds about Christ's birth. And, the image of Jesus, coming into the world as a baby, as a man, so He could redeem fallen humanity, speaks powerfully of God's love and His plan of salvation.
The theme Scripture is from Matthew chapter 2:
1 Now after Jesus was born in Bethlehem of Judea in the days of Herod the king, behold, wise men from the East came to Jerusalem,
2 saying, "Where is He who has been born King of the Jews? For we have seen His star in the East and have come to worship Him."
These Wise Men had seen a star, a sign in the heavens, and regarded to be some sort of communique - fact is, it was an expression of God's message to them. We have to be sensitive to how God is moving and speaking to us.
A well-known pop singer seems to have been on the receiving end of God's message and His love. The singer is Michael Buble. CBN News reports that Buble's son, Noah...
...was diagnosed with liver cancer in 2016 when he was only 3 years old. At the time of his diagnosis, Bublé and his wife, Luisana Lopilato, asked for prayers, adding, “We will win this battle, God willing.”Recently, the singer appeared on The Late Late Show with James Corden. The article says:
While Bublé tearfully said his son Noah’s story “is too hard to talk about,” the entertainer declared, “We all moved and we lived at [Children’s Hospital Los Angeles] and we just had the best doctors and, God, thank you, Jesus Christ.”Buble and his wife have endured the ordeal together; he related to Corden: “I’m not OK...My wife and I, when this all started, I became the strength to somehow pull us and lift us and to be positive. And when they got [the cancer] out, and the chemo was done, and they said, ‘We did it, it’s good, he’s OK,’ I fell. I just fell.” He said, "My wife picks me up now..."
Corden's father, Malcolm, a sax player, rode along in a "Carpool Karaoke" segment with his son, James, and Michael Buble. The article relates that Malcolm invited the singer "to participate in a charity event at his church in High Wycombe in England."
Obviously, I don't know where Michael Buble is regarding salvation and Christianity, but I am thankful that he had an opportunity to talk about God on a national platform, and followed through. I think you can say that God has been, and is, attempting to get Buble's attention. We know that God will use crisis in our lives in order to speak to us and draw us to Himself.
Another takeaway, for each of us, involves the question: When we face tragedy, to whom will we turn? We can certainly blame God and turn away from Him in the midst of our problems or we can turn to Him and experience His love and comfort - we can know that He is performing a work in our lives through our troubles.
In our time of trial, we can remember that we don't face it alone; God goes with us. And, there is human support available as well; those who are married can see their spouse as a valid source of that support. And, we can look to and rely on those in the Church who will walk with us as well.
The Christmas classic says, "Do you hear what I hear?" Are we hearing what God is saying to us? I believe He is saying to Michael Buble: "I did this." In our situations, we can also recognize God's hand and give Him praise.
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