Preparing for corporate worship December 18

Jesus bravely went to the Temple and taught the people during the Feast of Booths one year despite the Jews’ effort to kill Him. During His teaching, Jesus cried out, saying, “You both know Me and know where I am from; and I have not come of Myself, but He who sent Me is true, whom you do not know. I know Him, because I am from Him, and He sent Me” (John 7:28-29). We see in these verses Jesus’ intimate connection with His Father: (1) Jesus did not come to earth purely on His own initiative, but the Father, the one true God, sent Him to earth; (2) Jesus knows the Father, because He came from the Father, who sent Him to earth. At Christmas time, we celebrate God the Son coming to earth. The only way we know the Father is because the Son came. It is through His coming as the perfect representative of who God the Father is, living the perfect life we could not live and dying the substitutionary, totally acceptable death we needed that we can come to God in worship. As we gather this Sunday to celebrate Jesus’ birth, may we do so remembering Jesus came that we might know the Father. That calls for full-hearted adoration and thanksgiving from His people.