DAY FOUR:  COME JUST AS YOU ARE

We’ve reflected over the last week about what it means to come…Come, let us adore Him.

Our study guide on day one taught us that “erchomai,” the Greek word for “come,” is better translated, “to begin something new.” 

People may feel December winds down the year; that it’s the finishing up of one year just before the official new year begins when you can get to those resolutions and fresh starts.

But Christmas is the time of new beginnings.

Christ came at Christmas. Christ is the new beginning. I pray, as we enter the Christmas season, Christ is beginning something new in you. I pray He is preparing your heart for wonder and awe. I pray that He begins a light in you that you will protect and guard as you take it out in the world like we read about on Day Three.

We end this week’s theme looking at those who came to see Jesus following His birth. 

How does that make us want to fall in love with Christmas?

Because it is here we see who Jesus came for.

He came for everyone.

He came for the homeless, the jobless, those who’ve had abortions, those in prison, the drug addicts, the freaks, the rebels, the peculiar, the beaten, the bedraggled, and the unclean.

He came for the socialites, celebrities, models, the popular, the favored, the heros, those on Wall Street, the successful, the academics, the admired, and the beautiful.

THE SHEPHERDS

One look at those shepherds would’ve made you raise an eyebrow.

Dirty, socially awkward, and smelling like livestock – this is who God chose to give a private performance of angels under the starry sky announcing things were going to change. There was something new that had begun in the world, and it was for them. 

“Today in the town of David a Savior has been born to you; He is Christ the Lord.”     Luke 2:11

Come to the manger. Let me begin something new in you, His message says to them.

They didn’t wait to get cleaned up, they came as they were.

They just came. And worshipped.

And left full.

“The shepherds returned, glorifying and praising God for all the things they had heard and seen, which were just as they had been told.”  (vs 20)

THE MAGI

The other group we are told about who come and adore Him are the magi.

Another unlikely group, yet these men were different in almost every way from the shepherds.

They were prestigious enough to be invited into Herod’s presence, indicating they held respectable positions and had the funds and ability to travel a great distance.

Another eyebrow raising group, but this time, because they more resembled someone from Hogwarts than someone you might consider a more suitable audience for the Savior of the world.

Yet, God called these magi – these magic-utilizing, astrology-studying men; guiding them to the very feet of Jesus. 

Come to see Jesus. Let me begin something new in you, His message says to them.

They didn’t wait until they were perfect models of Biblical wisdom, they came as they were.

They just came. And worshipped.

And left full.

On coming to the house, they saw the child with His mother Mary, and they bowed down and worshiped Him. Then they opened their treasures and presented Him with gifts of gold and of incense and of myrrh.     Matthew 2:11

Maybe you have struggled truly coming to Jesus. Maybe you feel you don’t fit the mold of a Christ-follower. The good news is – there is no mold. He is for you. He is for Dumbledore. He is for man holding the sign on the corner. He is for everyone.

And He doesn’t expect us to get cleaned up before coming to sit with Him.

He says to you, 

Come to the manger. Let me begin something new in you.

Don’t wait, don’t lose focus.

Just come. And worship.

And leave…full.

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