discerning the times

In the Gospel according to Saint Luke, chapter 2, verses from 1 to 8. It says there: “…It happened in those days that an edict was promulgated by Augustus Caesar that the whole world was registered – that means that there was a census, everyone was registered. The Roman Empire wanted to know where all its people were, including in other countries I imagine too, because it says the whole world, but when it says the whole world, it is referring to the whole world of the Roman Empire, that they were in India, because even there Rome and Greece once arrived, whether they were in Turkey, in all the countries of the Mediterranean area or countries like Israel that were under the Roman Empire and its government. And it seems that Augustus Caesar wanted to know where all his territories were and take a census of all his inhabitants, because the Roman empire was a very well organized empire and had all its things well established, so he wanted to have a record of how big the empire was, how many people there were, where they were, what their names were, etc. So, Augustus César makes that general census take place.

He says that this first census was made when Sirenius was governor of Syria, he also sees something here about the historical aspect of the Bible. There he is pointing out who the governor was and historians can go to the historical records of those times and recognize that yes, there was a governor of Syria specifically named Sirenio. Because the Bible is reliable, the Bible is historical, the Bible is not a fairy tale, it is not something made up. The birth of Jesus is something real, historical, true, confirmable. There is more evidence for the existence of Jesus than for the existence of Plato, Socrates, many of the world's emperors, and many other things, because there are so many historical records that affirm the accuracy of the Biblical records.

Then, the governor was called Sirenio, from a province called Syria, and everyone was going to be registered, each one to his city and Joseph went up from Galilee, from the city of Nazareth to Judea, to the city of David, which was called Bethlehem, because she was of the house and family of David.

Last Sunday we were studying about David when Samuel comes to anoint him as king. And you will remember that God sent him to Bethlehem, to the house of a man named Jesse, his father. Joseph is a direct descendant of David's lineage and that is why he had to go to Bethlehem to register because that was the city of origin of his family.

But look also that God was moving in all this, because there was a prophecy that said that the Messiah was going to be born in Bethlehem of Judea. And then, to be registered with Mary, his wife, betrothed to him, who was pregnant. And it came to pass that while they were there the days of her birth were fulfilled and she gave birth to her firstborn son and wrapped him in swaddling clothes and laid him in a manger because there was no room for them in the inn.

So I want to turn now to Galatians chapter 4 verses 2 and 4. Here we are told:

“…But when the fullness of time had come, God sent his Son born of a woman and born under the law to redeem those who were under the law so that we might receive adoption as sons…”

Amen. May the Lord bless his holy word. I want to take a different spin on the typical Christmas message that that passage from Luke I just read would suggest, because I really don't care as much as emphasizing the nativity and the purely Christmas aspect of that text, but I want to talk a little bit about the times that we are currently living that resemble in a sense the times when Jesus was born, we are going to see that.

I want to compare a certain aspect of the life of Mary and Joseph with our own lives and the things that we can learn from their experience and how we can apply it to our own experience. The theme of my message is discerning the times. Why do I want to make this comparison? When Jesus is born there is like a confluence, a unity, a coming together of circumstances in many different dimensions that are beyond the individual, family experience of Joseph, Mary and Jesus.

José and María are living a purely daily life. Mary is a young girl from an insignificant village in Israel who is given a vision by the Lord that she is going to conceive a son and that this son is going to be something tremendously special. She conceives him in virginity. José enters into the drama, but sometimes there are things that God does in our lives and God has told us something, he has imparted a prophetic word to our hearts but it is like it is difficult for one to live fully within that word that one has listened.

I imagine that María and José got involved in daily life, coming and going, they have to pack their bags, go to this city with all the inconveniences of a trip of this type, and they are not fully aware of what is happening in its political, geographical, spiritual international environment. They are just living their lives on a daily level, on a normal level.

However, around them are tremendously significant times that are to change the entire history of humanity, its future, its past and its present. They are in the middle of a maelstrom and they don't know it. They are living a life, it seems, ordinary but around them are going around huge movements of all kinds of forces. The stars are shocked by the birth of that child that they are going to have. There is a star that some men in distant lands see that star that is pointing towards a certain place and they know that this star has a tremendous meaning.

There are documents written centuries before that speak of what they are experiencing and they do not know it. The cosmos itself, space itself is moving with respect to them and what they are experiencing. Wealthy and noble scientists, who we call wizards, who were highly developed people in science but were also a noble and royal caste, mobilized from other countries and came traveling long distances doing their astronomical calculations to get to where that child is going to be born. And the star knows where it will be born, but María and José are not sure. They simply go because the authorities told them that they had to go to their village of origin.

But even science and the nobility of other countries are mobilizing to go see this newborn. A powerful empire, Rome, which has created roads and a government that unites humanity, and a common culture and language, it is spoken of as the pax romana, which was established by the Roman empire around the entire earth. And that empire is the precise moment in history where now the good news of salvation that Christ has to offer will be able to spread throughout the world through the roads, the highways, the government that Rome has established.

That is why the writer of Galatians, Paul, says that, that Christ came in the fullness of time, that is, at a precise moment in history, when God wanted, at the moment when all things have flowed to a point. In particular, man was prepared to hear the news in the sense that there were roads, there was a common language, man had reached a certain level of cultural and philosophical development and could conceive and understand the sublime message of the Gospel.

There were prophecies declared centuries before that were now being fulfilled and Joseph and Mary did not know it. They just go obediently towards Bethlehem, I imagine full of discomfort, insecure. When they arrive in Bethlehem, all the hotels are full, nobody wants to receive them and the Hilton, which is perhaps the only hotel where they could stay, is too expensive for them, so I imagine that María, uncomfortable because of her 9 months, is complaining to José, her feet hurt, her ankles are swollen, she's simply complaining about my gosh, what a bad luck it was that we had to come here during this time.

But she doesn't know that she is pushed by a spiritual force that says, that's where I want my Son to be born, in Bethlehem, and I'm going to make it coincide with your pregnancy. And I want him to be born not in the Hilton, I want him to be born in a stable, on top of the straw reserved for oxen, because I want my Son to be a symbol of the God who loves the poor, the insignificant, the God who despises the haughty and looks with love to the humble.

And I'm going to announce it to shepherds, it's not going to be in the palace where I'm going to break the news that the most marvelous being in the universe has been born, no, I'm going to announce it to the poor. He knows that the shepherds were among the most despised people in the Hebrew city because they cared for animals and that was a highly despised job, it was almost impure. However, the Lord announces to these pastors, because he also has a message that he wants to give to the world that those who listen to the news of God are the simple-hearted people, those who are like children, not the sophisticated, not the rich, not the powerful.

All these things are happening. God mobilizes angels and sends an angel, the archangel, to speak to Mary. In another part of the region, Elizabeth, Maria's cousin, and Zacarias, an ordinary priest, a local pastor, conceive a child in old age after having had no children in their entire lives. And that son is going to be part of the process as well. It is that herald that the Bible says in another passage of the Old Testament who is announcing, declaring the good news, the prophet John who goes before the Messiah, and God is also preparing that in another part of the country, without them even realizing it. thing of the other

This Roman census that moves all of humanity throughout the Roman world, the Greco-Roman Empire, people have to go to different places. Can you imagine, if you had a plane you could have traveled up high and seen all these countries, people moving like little ants to go to their birthplaces because the Roman empire wants to know where their citizens are.

And there is a malevolent king who has heard of certain prophecies, because these magicians have told him and then he also mobilizes and is restless and wants to kill that heir who he knows is a threat to his permanence, because the world, man when he understands that his interests are being threatened, he also rises up and tries to destroy God's purposes.

And there is also another couple over there in the temple precincts, Ana and Simeon, prophetic people, spirit-filled people to whom God also decides to speak and tells Simeon to be ready, that at a given moment that child will arrive, that baby and he is going to take it in his arms and bless it, because he expected consolation.

So, we see that José and María are there, as we say, removed from the noise, simply there doing their things, living a perfectly daily life, perhaps complaining about their poverty, about the inconvenience they have to experience, believing that their lives are lives. totally ordinary and ordinary but they do not know that they are extraordinary people and that the entire world, the creation, the prophecies, the very spirit of Jehovah is working with respect to their lives and that wonderful baby that they carry. Maria and Jose don't understand any of these things, they don't clearly understand the scale of what they are experiencing.

And that's how it happens with us, here is a little bit of the application of what I want to tell you, that's how it happens with us frequently. God is working around us in mighty ways, in systematic ways, to use us and take us where he wants but we don't understand it. Those of us who see only… are only looking down and looking at the immediate circle of our life, but we cannot understand what is happening around us. And that is why we think that our life is insignificant, or it is problematic, or it is difficult, because we cannot see the times we are living.

And it happens to us like Jacob, in Bethel, that Jacob is fleeing from his brother Esau who wants to kill him, and he stops in a place where night catches him and he believes that it is an ordinary place and that he is living a drama just familiar, a negative family inconvenience, he lays down to sleep and has a great vision, fights with an angel all night and sees a ladder going up from heaven to earth and back, and when he realizes where he's been , Bethel, the terrible meaning of that place, he exclaims, "How terrible is this place, it is nothing other than the gate of heaven and the house of God." He believed that it was a random piece of land and that it was like a hole that led directly to the throne of God, that space. Because there are spaces that are so sacred, so magnetized and he didn't know it.

And so many times we are stepping on sacred ground like Moses, and we need God to tell us, "Take off your sandals, the place you step on is holy." I believe that we are living in times like this at this moment, they are pregnant times, they are extremely significant times, but we do not understand it. We only see the bad things that are happening with us, in our family, around us, the news, the problems, the terrorism, the economic crisis, all that, but we don't understand the greater meaning that God has in mind and how so many different circumstances and situations, what they are doing is conspiring to take humanity where God wants to take it.

And perhaps we are a direct part of that drama and God wants to use us too in some way for the purposes that he has and we don't know it. We live in such incredible, powerful times and we do not know that they are the house of God and the gate of heaven. What we see is simply something everyday and simple.

If we understood it, we probably wouldn't be caused so much pain and confusion by what we are experiencing. You remember that I have preached before that the way in which we interpret our experience determines the way in which things affect us. If you see things as terrible, without redemption, like it's a dead end, how can this happen to me, what good can come out of this, my life is destroyed, my life is undone, there is no redemption possible anymore It will also happen to you and what you have experienced will also affect you.

But if you see it as God working in your life, if you see it as those who love God all things work together for good, if you see it as now perhaps you see it as a tragedy but tomorrow perhaps God will to truly reveal what he has in mind and that if you have faith, everything can be beneficial and blessed. That God is always working in your life. Then you will be able to see your tragedy and your pain in a different way, that has a redemptive element within it.

That is why it is so important to understand the times, to discern the times, to know what God is doing, to be able to understand, to ask the Lord for wisdom. One thing that we have to ask God more and more every day, Father, give me wisdom to understand what I am living and what you are doing in my life, not only see the ground, look up to the heavens and see the stars and see your great plan, because you take time.

God is a systemic God, when God works, God works 360 degrees and he also thinks about tomorrow, he thinks a hundred years away, he thinks a thousand years away and we are here thinking only about my own little life and what am I getting old, and that I have to do something because otherwise I'm going to miss the bus. And God has other plans for us.

We have to live life in light of God's great plans. We have to ask the Lord, Lord, give me your eyes to see with your eyes. As there is a choir that says like this, help me to see my life, life, the world, in the light of your plans, that you are a God who does not make mistakes, you have an infinite chessboard and you see all the pieces and you know all the possible moves, from before they move, and in you you are advancing your love, your plan is good for us.

And in the end everything works out for the best because God is in control. That is why it is important to ask the Lord for discernment, wisdom to understand the context in which we are living. It is important to be able to discern the times, especially in this time of history in which we are living.

How many have heard of the sons of Issachar? The sons of Issachar are spoken of from time to time in writing, in First Chronicles, chapter 12:32, it says that among the warriors who came to David to declare him king, after the death of Saul, came different types of warriors and different types of men and between them, says:

"...200 men from the sons of Issachar came, 200 main ones - they were important men - they were understood in the times and who knew what Israel should do, whose saying all their brothers followed..."

Wow! If that could be said of us. If that could be said of the church in the 21st century, that the church is understood in the times, they know what the world should do and their saying is followed by all their peers. We have to aspire to be like this, as God's people, brothers, to understand the times.

If this nation of the United States at this moment of elections could understand the times and know what they must do, who they must choose, what leader, what type of leader, what heart, as I said last Sunday, they must choose. Don't look for the flashiness of a candidate for government, don't even look for his promises, don't look for how well he speaks, don't look for whether he wears a red or blue tie, if he has a lot of hair or little hair, if he has beautiful white teeth and large or no teeth. Search your heart, read your heart, discern and understand the times.

What is God brewing? What is God up to at this time? And what kind of leader does this nation need. That is what we have to look for. That is what we have to understand. We have to be the children of Issachar, who understand the times and know what we have to do. Ask the Lord, Father, give me understanding so that I know the time that I am living in this stage of my life, the economy of my family. What are you doing to my children? What is it that you want to do with me? What are you doing in my marriage? What are you doing in the ministry that I direct? What are you doing in this nation, in this city of Boston?

Ask the Lord for wisdom and discernment because the way you live life will depend on that. If you live it on a minuscule, small, microcosmic scale, or if you live it on a macrocosmic level, of everything God wants to do. We have to live life at the level of eternity, brothers, we are eternal beings, we are sublime beings. Don't live it like a bread-to-your-mouth beggar every morning, getting up, getting dressed, getting in the car, driving in the cold and coming back home to take refuge and watch the soap opera. Live your life on another level, live life on the scale of a king, of a lord of the earth, as God has called you to live.

The perspective we adopt changes the effect of the circumstances we experience. What are the circumstances we are experiencing at this time? Like Mary and Joseph, can we discern what God is doing in these times?

A while ago I preached another sermon, because God is speaking to me in these ways, in Psalm 2 you can see it, because all these things are tied together. God is disturbing me about what is happening in the world at this time, and what is he doing with humanity and why we have to be ready to position ourselves at the right moment, to know how to ride the wave that is coming . In Psalm 2:

“…Why do the people riot and the towns think vain things. The kings of the earth will rise up, princes will consult united against the Lord and against his anointed saying, let us break their bonds and cast their ropes from us. He who dwells in heaven will laugh, the Lord will mock them, then he will speak to them in his anger and trouble them with his wrath, but I have set my king on Zion, my holy mountain, I will publish the decree. Jehovah has told me, “You are my son, today I begot you. Ask of me and I will give you the nations as your inheritance, and with your possession the ends of the earth…”

This is a messianic psalm written hundreds of years before Jesus was born. I believe that it is a psalm that applies today, it is a prophetic psalm. The nations riot against Jehovah, they complain about religion and faith. In the United States, throughout Europe, throughout the western, intellectually developed world, men want to throw off their domination of the word, of Christian, biblical morality, of the millennial ethic that men have followed and want to create their own designs about sexuality, about the relationship between man and woman, about morality, about abortion, about children, genetics, manipulating it, controlling everything, getting rid of God's judo and saying, we are sovereign, we are autonomous, we do not need any God, no scripture to tell us what to do, we are going to invent our own morality, our own society, our own systems.

And they are happy because they think they have already achieved it. The Bible says that God will laugh at them and then upset them. Put a line on that word, it will disturb them, it will confuse them, it will fill them with confusion and fear with its anger.

I believe that this is what is happening in this time of humanity. Man believes that he can throw off the yoke of God but God is troubling him. When you look at the world today, these times that we are living in, what we see is confusion and fear everywhere. Right now there's a poll here in the United States that says the fear of terrorism is the same as it was in the days immediately after 9/11. imagine. There is that same fear, that same sense that an imminent terrorist attack is coming and that our leaders cannot assure us of anything.

The American people do not know right now where to go and where to turn. That's why this man Trump, I'm not a fan of him, maybe he's realized it, but he's winning and violating all the things that the experts predict about who could reach the level where he has reached. Because the American people are so afraid of a terrorist attack and what's going on in the Islamic world right now that they would grab a hot nail just to get help and get them out of the situation.

There is confusion in the environment. And I believe that a person like this man, who reaches that level, is also a repudiation of that nation against the liberal, intellectualist ethic represented by President Obama and the entire current administration, which has gone behind a rebellion. against God, against morality, against everything good and noble of the spirit. And God is confusing them and this nation is rejecting.

I read the analysis of this nation's political observers all the time and I think they don't dare admit the reason this nation is going after a man who wouldn't seem possible to have even 1 percent. It's because the people are already tired, sick of what they've had up to now, both from their conservative leaders and from their liberal leaders.

There is no leadership right now in the nation and you have to choose between a bad one or a worse one, because the people don't even want Hillary or the Democrats. Read the comments today, even the Democrats themselves wouldn't want an alternative, but they don't. Conservatives would like an alternative and they don't have one either, because God is confusing, he is disturbing the nations.

In Europe, the European nations are going after the right, they are repudiating the left-liberal ethic that has reigned in Europe for many decades, and today they are winning. In France, the right-wing group, Marine Lepin, has just won a very big victory. In Poland, liberal politics are also rejected because people are already fed up with rejection. They don't want to embrace God either, but they know that embracing non-God doesn't come to anything good either. So, they don't know what to choose because God is confusing them, he is disturbing them, he is leading them to a blind alley.

And in Islam the Islamic world, which is a billion or more people, is also confused. Islam has also reached an extreme point where there is war everywhere, its nations are decrepit, bankrupt. There are millions of immigrants from all parts of the Islamic world leaving the Middle East, masses, seeking precisely the West that they hate and detest, trying to find refuge there because what their religion produces is death, violence, conflict and ethnic, sectarian hatred.

I believe that if the Islamic world understood what is happening with this migratory crisis, it would have to understand that Islamism has totally failed and is not capable of offering salvation and a solution to humanity.

So, brothers, what I see... I would like to continue this analysis a little more, but time passes. We too are living in pregnant times, terribly important and significant times where God is doing something with humanity. Look, I read a lot about apocalyptic times and try to measure the times, but still my expectations are being accelerated because the things that are happening right now in the world definitely remind us that we are not living in ordinary times.

José and María, which is you and me, have to realize what their lives mean. Even the church lives difficult times, heresy, apostasy, that one sees. You read the newspapers, just last night you were reading an article in the New York Times about certain churches in Los Angeles and you say, wow, is this the alternative? Churches with special effects, lots of lights, cool people, drinking lattes while listening to the sermon. and where is Christ? Where is the cross? Where is the holiness? Where is the call to leave the world? Where is the search for salvation by giving up your life until death?

What I see is just spoiled kids in their ripped jeans and pastors dressed like them trying to give them what they want to hear. Forgive me if I'm old fashioned but the truth is that these things fill me with a holy anger, an indignation, I don't know what to call it. But the truth is that what we see is not good, not even in church.

We are in the last times. First Timothy, chapter 4, verse 1 speaks of the fact that the spirit clearly says that in the last times some will apostatize from the faith, listening to deceitful spirits and doctrines of demons.

This is in these times that we are living in right now. In Second Timothy, chapter 4, verse 3, Paul says that I advise you to preach the word, to urge in season and out of season, reprove, rebuke, exhort with all patience and doctrine because the time will come when they will not suffer sound doctrine but rather having itching ears, they will heap for themselves teachers according to their own lusts, and they will turn away from the truth and turn to fables.

We are in these times in which today if you preach what the word says, you are bloody fat, boring, a self-righteous, who wants to spoil the party for people and who does not want to get in tune with the times.

I have sometimes thought about buying jeans and a slightly tight shirt to see if I am a little more popular with people, because people want to see what they want and want to hear what they want. If you speak the truth, the word of God, forget it, let's find someone else to tell us what we want to hear. We say as the officer said to Pablo, "Well, I'll listen to you another day, right now you're kind of crazy."

We have to live in light of what God wants to do. I will close with this, brothers. What is the alternative for you and me specifically? How do we have to live in these times? We people who discern the times how we are expected to live. I can simply offer you two or three little things. I call it this, the sacred alternative to the times we are living in. Instead of doing what the world is doing, how should we live in these amazing times in which we are living?

I want to refer you, for example, to Second Peter, chapter 3, there are many passages, maybe I only have time for this one. Peter talks about the times they are living, he says in verse 3:

“…Knowing this first, that in the last days scoffers will come walking after their own lusts, and saying, “Where is the promise of his advent?” Because from the day the parents fell asleep, all things remain that way, like the beginning of creation.

There are so many centuries that the church has announced that Christ is coming, that Christ is coming and we have already sung all the choruses, we have run out of choruses that Christ is coming and has not come, that one is almost afraid to talk about the second coming, speak of the end times. And people say, yes, but they have been saying that for so long, the same thing, the same thing, and that expectation that Christ is coming has been lost. But when you read and discern the times, you see that something very special is happening in humanity at this time and as Paul says, he says in verse 1:

“Beloved, this is the second letter that I am writing to you, and in both of you I awaken with exhortation your clean understanding so that you may remember the words that have been said before by the holy prophets. In other words, I am speaking to you so that you remember what the prophets have said about the coming of the Messiah. Do not get carried away by those who say that these are fairy tales, old wives' tales.

So in verse 5 it says; “Those people who mockingly say so willfully ignore that in ancient times the heavens and also the earth were made by the word of God. But the heavens and the earth that exist now are reserved by that same word, saved for fire on the day of judgment and perdition of men. And do not ignore this that for the Lord one day is like a thousand years and a thousand years is like one day."

God thinks systematically. He has his watch, he has his plan, he has taken time but it is because he is leading to the fulfillment of times. The prophets announced the coming of the Messiah centuries before and it was fulfilled. The Apostles announced the second coming of Christ, centuries have passed, but it will come true and the Lord said, look at the times when the fields are white for harvest, look when the flowers begin to come out, you know that spring is near. When the predictions of writing start to match up the way they are, we know something is coming.

I do not know if it is going to be the last coming of Christ or if it is simply a terribly important time for humanity, but I do know, brothers, that I hear the sound of rain. I hear the wind that something is going to happen, and we have to prepare ourselves. We cannot continue to live our ordinary life. These are important times. We have to discern them.

The Lord is taking a while, He has delayed a bit because He wanted a large part of humanity, many people to repent, but the day of judgment will come. So, verse 11 says.

"... since all these things have to be undone, how can you not walk in a holy and pious way of life..."

I believe that in these times, brothers, that are not common, that great things are going to happen and are happening, the people of God have to gird their loins, they have to raise their heads because the day of their redemption is near. We have to live like people who are waiting for a visitation. We have to live giving importance to things of the spirit, don't be thinking about birds in the air, don't waste your time. Fix your life. Fix your character, fix your marriage, consecrate yourself to the Lord, live like you live for eternity. Fix your uniform, iron it well, live as a soldier of Jesus Christ, live with strength, consecrated to the Lord, as people who live life seriously. We have to live the Christian life seriously, because times are dangerous, they are important. Live your life in holiness, live your life in surrender to the Lord, measure your money, your time, your energy, in light of what God is doing, invest in the Kingdom of God. Live for the Kingdom of God.

Fix your life. Consecrate yourself to the Lord. Take the things of God seriously because times are dangerous, says the word. We await new heavens and new earths according to his promises, therefore, oh, beloved, while waiting for these things, seek diligently to be found by him blameless, blameless in peace. And understand that the patience of our Lord is for salvation so you, oh beloved, knowing it beforehand – this message is a warning, this message is a prophetic word from God for this church and for the world if they want to hear it too.

The times ahead are significant times, important times. José and María, which is you and me, let's not live our lives simply complaining that I can't put super gasoline in the car and I have to put regular because I have a Chevrolet instead of a Cadillac.

Don't live your life killing yourself for material things that lead nowhere. Live your life with a holy, sacred look, consecrated to the Lord, loving what God loves, hating what God hates, putting your interests where they matter, living as a citizen of the Kingdom, your eyes set on the eternal, like a pilgrim and a foreigner in the world, not as a citizen who comes to live here in the world, we are passing through. This is not our home.

Therefore, you beloved, knowing in advance to guard yourselves, lest you be dragged away by the error of the wicked and fall from your steadfastness. Rather, grow in the grace and knowledge of our Lord and savior Jesus Christ, to him be glory now and to the day of eternity. Amen."

Glory to God. My brothers, that this word of warning, there are many other texts that I would like to be able to discuss with you. Perhaps the Lord will have the opportunity to let us meditate a little more on this, because I feel that this is very important, these are times of consecration, these are times of delivery, these are times to stop playing with the children. These are no longer times to be playing church, these are times to live as priests, as martyrs, as people completely sold to the Kingdom of God.

Forget about normal circumstances, you are not living in normal times and you are not a normal person either, you are abnormal for Christ, in Christ. Amen. So embrace right now, stand up, embrace God's call, embrace your condition, embrace your citizenship, embrace your identity, renounce citizenship of the world right now, surrender to the Lord, look around you, see the times that they are dangerous, they are significant, and say, Lord, I embrace my destiny, I embrace my identity as your servant, I give you my family, I am going to live for you, I am going to live like Joseph and Mary because I am carrying within me the redemption of the world, the glorious message of the Gospel. I am pregnant with the word of God and with the meaning of God for humanity and my life has been irretrievably changed by my identity as your son, your servant. And help me to live that way, my family, my home, that it be a sanctuary, a temple for you, that my life is worth to you in these times.

Father, we embrace your truth in these Christmas times, Lord, help us to put ourselves in the place of Joseph and Mary, of John, of Elizabeth, of Zacharias, of Ana, of Simeon, and understand what we are experiencing in the light of your eternity. and in light of your historical, cosmic purposes, Lord. We bless you, take us out of here with a sense of importance and solemnity regarding who we are and what we are experiencing.

I bless your people, Father, thank you for bringing us to your house, your sanctuary, your refuge, Lord, continue with us in the next service as well and fill us with your peace, your presence, your love and renew us, Father, to live the life you want us to live. We adore you in the name of Jesus. Amen and amen.