Monday, December 11
Read: Luke 2:1-5
Our passage this week, Luke 2:1-20, is very familiar, but does not cease to amaze. Consider today how Luke shows us God’s control over history.
In that time period, there was no taxation without registration. This meant families had to return to the birthplace of the father’s family. When Caesar called for all the world to be taxed, this meant that Joseph and his family had to travel. Their family’s birthplace was in Bethlehem. Joseph and Mary had to travel to Bethlehem, but that didn’t occur before they were married or after the birth of the baby, but precisely when Mary was great with child.
They traveled to the city of David, since Joseph himself was related to David. This all came together to fulfill all God had planned, at precisely the right time, as Micah had prophesied hundreds of years earlier in Micah 5:2. God worked throughout the course of history to prepare this precise time in history to enter into our world. He did it at just the right time (Gal. 4:4-5; Rom. 5:6).
God planned it all, right down to the details. The same God still controls our time and our history.
Consider: As it did then, so now it seems like history is out of our control. The events surrounding Jesus’ birth shows us the opposite. How can you praise God today for his control of history?
I Commend Joy! 