Dec 21 - Luke 2:16

And they went with haste

and found Mary and Joseph,

and the babe lying in a manger.

Luke 2:16

Fulfillment. What was predicted came true. The shepherds found exactly what had been prophesied – “Mary and Joseph, and the babe lying in a manger.”

Fulfillment is a wonderful and glorious word!

It is also a rare word.

When you think about it, though, God’s judicious use of prophecy and fulfillment makes it even more glorious. He generally saves it for the hinge points of history and not for routine predictions about what we’ll eat for dinner tonight.

Overuse would rob us of faith. Faith is that tender, tenuous trusting of things not seen. But God’s overuse of the exceptions would make us more and more demanding. Rarity, on the other hand, nurtures our sense of wonder. It also develops our patience. It focuses and refocuses us on the most monumental themes of the kingdom … instead of on fleeting, worldly concerns. 

Christmas was the great hinge of history. The cross and resurrection were hinges too. So were the Exodus and Exile. Christ’s coming again is probably the next really big hinge. But that doesn’t mean God isn’t speaking in the meantime!

Smaller – yet still powerful fulfillments – come each time one human heart turns toward the manger and the cross.

Each day we can be part of God plan and fulfillment when we bend our hearts along with Hebrews 8:10 (citing Leviticus 26:12) …

“I will put my laws in their minds,

and write them on their hearts,

and I will be their God,

and they shall be my people.

In Christ’s Love,

a guy who wants to fulfill

and be fulfilled