ADORATION – Reflect on God’s Greatness
GOD IS GOOD – There is such an absolute perfection in God’s nature and being that nothing is wanting to it or defective in it, and nothing can be added to it to make it better.
Exodus 33:19 And the Lord said, “I will cause all my goodness to pass in front of you, and I will proclaim my name, the Lord, in your presence. I will have mercy on whom I will have mercy, and I will have compassion on whom I will have compassion.
Psalm 106:1 Praise the Lord. Give thanks to the Lord, for he is good; his love endures forever.
Praise God for His Goodness
Praise God that He is completely good. There is no room for improvement in His nature. Praise God that He always acts according to His goodness. Praise God for the specific ways He has demonstrated His goodness.
CONFESSION: Confess your sins to God and receive his continued mercy.
“If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just and will forgive us our sins and purify us from all unrighteousness.” 1 John 1:9
THANKSGIVING: Giving thanks to God for his specific blessings in our lives.
“Shout for joy to the Lord, all the earth. Worship the Lord with gladness; come before him with joyful songs. Know that the Lord is God. It is he who made us, and we are his; we are his people, the sheep of his pasture. Enter his gates with thanksgiving and his courts with praise; give thanks to him and praise his name. For the Lord is good and his love endures forever; his faithfulness continues through all generations.” Psalm 100
SUPPLICATION: Bringing our requests to God.
- Bring your personal prayer requests to God.
- Pray for Afghan refugees to seek and find God as their refuge and healer in the midst of feeling like they have no home.
SCRIPTURE READING:
Matthew 1 – English Standard Version
The Genealogy of Jesus Christ
1 The book of the genealogy of Jesus Christ, the son of David, the son of Abraham.
2 Abraham was the father of Isaac, and Isaac the father of Jacob, and Jacob the father of Judah and his brothers, 3 and Judah the father of Perez and Zerah by Tamar, and Perez the father of Hezron, and Hezron the father of Ram,[a] 4 and Ram the father of Amminadab, and Amminadab the father of Nahshon, and Nahshon the father of Salmon, 5 and Salmon the father of Boaz by Rahab, and Boaz the father of Obed by Ruth, and Obed the father of Jesse, 6 and Jesse the father of David the king.
And David was the father of Solomon by the wife of Uriah, 7 and Solomon the father of Rehoboam, and Rehoboam the father of Abijah, and Abijah the father of Asaph,[b] 8 and Asaph the father of Jehoshaphat, and Jehoshaphat the father of Joram, and Joram the father of Uzziah, 9 and Uzziah the father of Jotham, and Jotham the father of Ahaz, and Ahaz the father of Hezekiah, 10 and Hezekiah the father of Manasseh, and Manasseh the father of Amos,[c] and Amos the father of Josiah, 11 and Josiah the father of Jechoniah and his brothers, at the time of the deportation to Babylon.
12 And after the deportation to Babylon: Jechoniah was the father of Shealtiel,[d] and Shealtiel the father of Zerubbabel, 13 and Zerubbabel the father of Abiud, and Abiud the father of Eliakim, and Eliakim the father of Azor, 14 and Azor the father of Zadok, and Zadok the father of Achim, and Achim the father of Eliud, 15 and Eliud the father of Eleazar, and Eleazar the father of Matthan, and Matthan the father of Jacob, 16 and Jacob the father of Joseph the husband of Mary, of whom Jesus was born, who is called Christ.
17 So all the generations from Abraham to David were fourteen generations, and from David to the deportation to Babylon fourteen generations, and from the deportation to Babylon to the Christ fourteen generations.
The Birth of Jesus Christ
18 Now the birth of Jesus Christ took place in this way. When his mother Mary had been betrothed to Joseph, before they came together she was found to be with child from the Holy Spirit. 19 And her husband Joseph, being a just man and unwilling to put her to shame, resolved to divorce her quietly. 20 But as he considered these things, behold, an angel of the Lord appeared to him in a dream, saying, “Joseph, son of David, do not fear to take Mary as your wife, for that which is conceived in her is from the Holy Spirit. 21 She will bear a son, and you shall call his name Jesus, for he will save his people from their sins.” 22 All this took place to fulfill what the Lord had spoken by the prophet:
23 “Behold, the virgin shall conceive and bear a son,
and they shall call his name Immanuel”
(which means, God with us). 24 When Joseph woke from sleep, he did as the angel of the Lord commanded him: he took his wife, 25 but knew her not until she had given birth to a son. And he called his name Jesus.
SCRIPTURE REFLECTION:
A genealogy was a sort of resume for Matthew’s readers. It wasn’t just “bare” facts; it told a story of who a person was. Matthew, the careful and detail orientated former tax collector, reveals the names of specific people from the line of Jesus in order to tell the story of who he is. He doesn’t start with Adam, but he begins with Abraham, the father of the Jewish faith family. Jesus is the long ago foretold and long-awaited Messiah. Matthew may have been good with details, but he was a terrible “PR” guy. He intentionally included details in the genealogy of Jesus that most people of the time would have left out. He included five women even though women were not valued or considered worthy of inclusion in a resume such as this. Not only did he include women, he included women who were outsiders to the Jewish faith and women who were known “sinners.” He included, with a single line, the sordid tale of David’s adultery and murder of loyal Uriah: “David was the father of Solomon, whose mother had been Uriah’s wife.” Wow, why put this shameful memory into the line of the Messiah? Why not just stick with the historical facts of the family line? “David was the father of Solomon” would have told the story… or would it? The real story of the Messiah is that his family line included the heirs of the covenant who were also sinful, broken people. Jesus was born of a virgin; his “family line” is eternal and divine. God skipped the normal process of human procreation. Jesus was born of a virgin; his family line came through a normal human woman with noble and ignoble characters included in that line. Okay, let’s try to think about all this for a moment. All those names you read were real people who lived their lives day by day just as you do yours. They got up each day of their lives, made good and bad choices, then they died. This “normal” human living went on for thousands of years until Jesus was born. Behind all this normal human living God was working his purposes. These purposes were ordained and foretold before these people made any choices, and yet their choices mattered. How is this possible? Start with the sovereign God who is eternally existing and who made the cosmos. Then, anything else that is true about him is not that difficult to believe.