ADVENT FOR ADULTS #10
December 10th ….15 NIGHTS TIL CHRISTMAS
How to know for sure you’ve been Adopted : PART TWO
“And it came to pass, as the angels were gone away from them into heaven, the shepherds said one to another, Let us now go even unto Bethlehem, and see this thing which is come to pass, which the Lord hath made known unto us.” [Luke 2:15]
How we can be sure we’ve been adopted is by following the light we are given to the source. People need to be reminded occasionally that ultimately God’s whole purpose is to lead as many people to Himself as possible. God doesn’t want anybody to die without Christ. “The Lord is … not willing that any should perish, but that all should come to repentance.” [2Peter 3:9] (Repentance is that contrition we talked about earlier— the realization that we are sinners in need of a saviour.)
Knowing this is His purpose, we begin to understand that a lot of things in life are LIGHT. By light I mean, God’s little hints. God’s whispers: “that’s it— follow that thought— you’re getting warm… warmer…keep going… you’re almost there.” The whispers are there even when the shouts are not.
One time Jesus’ disciples made a big fuss, announcing in the streets to the crowds that Jesus was Messiah. “They were going around shouting “blessed be the King that cometh in the name of the Lord: peace in heaven, and glory in the highest!” [Luke 19:38]The naysayers and hecklers told Jesus to tell his disciples to shut up, and Jesus answered them, “I tell you that, if these should hold their peace, the stones would immediately cry out.” [Luke 19:40 ]
If all the preachers and all the churches and all the Christians in Christendom suddenly shut up God would continue to shine his light into the world through a thousand different ways. You can’t get away from it— the smallest child knows there’s something bigger out there, something wonderful going to happen to the human race.
We are born with the light of God in our hearts. The Bible says that every man is born with Christ’s “light of life” within him: “In him was life; and the life was the light of men. And the light shineth in darkness; and the darkness comprehended it not.” [John1:4,5]
The reason we don’t “comprehend” (understand what this inner light means) is because we don’t follow it to it’s true source.
Don’t misunderstand. The ultimate truth is not within us. We have people today saying things like “Trust your heart. The truth is within you.” “We all have within us a spark of divinity— all we need to do is fan the flames.” “We are ALL ultimately gods. “All paths lead to God.” No! This is NOT TRUE. All that we are all born with is a flickering, fleeting glimpse of eternity. Some have called it “eternity in their hearts”. I personally call it “premonitions of eternity”.
What does this mean? It means there’s an implanted knowledge of a spiritual dimension to life, and a built-in desire to know the source of this desire.
But following the trail within always leads to a dead end. The answer is not inside us— it’s outside us. The answer is in a divine document that God has revealed to the human race for their own protection and eventual salvation.
What am I talking about? I’m talking about the Bible.The Bible is divine light. It is God’s documented promissory note to the human race. It is God’s revelation of Himself, his plans, and an accurate map designed to leads to his very doorstep.
Every person reading this has had a Bible somewhere within reach for most of their lives. The only thing that has never happened for most of us is it’s never been opened and used for it’s intended purpose. The whole purpose of the Bible is to lead you into the presence of God.
I’m not talking philosophically or metaphorically. I’m talking actually, literally. The Bible was intended to lead YOU into the presence of almighty God. Not just to give you knowledge about God, but to bring you to actually experience a relationship with God.
I don’t know if I can explain this any better than by reminding you of our Christmas story out of Luke 2. The shepherds were given divine, supernatural revelation— heaven itself split open and angels came down out of it and proclaimed the birth of the Messiah-King. To these shepherds, their words were not a complete mystery. They had been raised under the sound of the Torah— the Jewish Old Testament— and they had been told all their lives that one day Messiah would come. The source of this revelation was an old book that had been passed reverently from generation to generation for over a thousand years. So they already had documented, endorsed, factual, historical evidence of what to look for. They weren’t just looking for a vague good feeling or a tingling within— they were looking for an actual person, a person their Scriptures promised would come to save them and the world. And they knew this person would come to Bethlehem, because the ancient Scriptures said so. [Micah 5:2, Matt 2:5,6] So they had three coordinates to the truth: the promises of Scripture, the revelation of the angels— and the supposed physical evidence lying somewhere in a manger.
The point is, they ACTED when the opportunity came. They could have said, “this will wait till tomorrow.” This is something most of you have been saying for a lifetime. You’ve had the facts in front of you for how many Christmases? Have you ever actually followed them up to where they lead?
What are they leading to?
Where they actually lead is into the presence of the Creator God.
“But how can you know you are in the presence of God?” you may ask, “What does it look like? Feel like?”
I am a simple man. All I can tell you is that words fail. There are no words in any language that can describe the joy, the peace, the glory — the ecstasy —of being in the presence of the source of all light and all life.
The shepherds discovered this glory. And these were simple men too— not theologians, or philosophers, but uneducated peasants. “And the shepherds returned, glorifying and praising God for all the things that they had heard and seen, as it was told unto them.” [Luke 2:20]
Maybe their testimony doesn’t impress you. That’s because maybe they couldn’t find the right words. But if you would follow the trail of light, and if you found this divine source, you would be able to describe it more eloquently, yes?
NEXT: How to know for sure you’ve been Adopted : PART THREE
GO TO START: ADVENT FOR ADULTS #1