Good News!

If Christmas doesn't do anything else, it should at the very basic level remind us of the Good News.  Not just the Biblical account of Yahushua's birth or geneo (beginning), but of the Good News that he himself preached.  In the synagogue He read the following scroll of the prophet Isaiah and finished saying this prophecy is now fulfilled in your hearing:

“The Spirit of THE LORD YAHUWAH is upon me, and because of this He has anointed me to preach The Good News to the poor; He has sent me to heal broken hearts and to proclaim liberty to captives, vision to the blind, and to restore the crushed with forgiveness,”  Luke 4:18

No human authority, government or earthy power could stop this fulfillment and it was executed with precision and completeness during Yahushua's three year ministry.  See the Jews in the first century were looking for a powerful king who would immediately free them from oppressive Roman rule.  The only problem is in their quest for political liberation, they failed to recognize their present spiritual slavery to sin and evil.  This was the Messiah's primary mission, to preach the Good News of salvation to both the materially and more importantly spiritually bankrupt of the House of Israel.

So while the Good News or Gospel is certainly about the Lord Messiah, it also is his message to his spiritual brothers and then to us.  As the apostle Paul summed it up:

“I am not ashamed of the gospel, because it is the power of God for the salvation of everyone who believes: first for the Jew, then for the Gentile” Romans 1:16  

Now that is the power of God.  The message of salvation delivered through the one whom it would ultimately be advanced.  First the Jews were told and then it was spread to the Gentiles.  

But glory, honor, and peace, to every man that works good, to the Jew first, and also to the Gentile:  Romans 2:10

We just can't hold that sort of good news in!  We've got to tell it because it is a once in a lifetime opportunity to become right with God through the saving power of Christ's finished work and blood.  When he said, "It is accomplished", he had done all that the Father had asked of him.  Like our Master, we can be faithful too and proclaim the good and acceptable year of the LORD while there is still time.  It won't go on forever.  So yes, rejoice this Christmas as it calls to mind the loving act of our Heavenly Father and His obedient son.  It still holds out the gift of salvation and the promise of everlasting life to those who believe.

Be Our Strength

O Yahuwah, favour us, for thee we have waited, Be their arm, in the mornings, Yea, our salvation in time of adversity. Isaiah 33:2

I read this in my YouVersion Bible Reading this morning and was so moved by the poetry of this verse that I had to share it with you.  I read "Be their arm in the mornings", I though of the word "army" and to arm oneself.  The main sense is that Yah was being called upon to be the strength of a nation in adverse times.  Isaiah the prophet wrote these words and you can hear him praying both for his people and the success of those fighting men of Israel.

This is such a blessing to know that our God is indeed a strong tower where the righteous run in and are saved:

A tower of strength is the name of Yahuwah, Into it the righteous runneth, and is set on high.  Proverbs 18:10

Imagine a place to run to, really a name and the authority it bears that allows the righteous to run in and be set up high and away from those seeking our harm.  Yahushua is our righteousness due to what he accomplished for us on the cross.  So through Messiah our sins are obliterated and we are now the righteousness of God:

“For HE HATH MADE HIM TO BE SIN FOR US, WHO KNEW NO SIN; that we might be made the righteousness of God in him” (2nd Corinthians 5:21)

I've had the sublime joy of running to Yah as my tower of refuge many times when I was hard pressed and in trouble.  I made a request like Moshe and had a vision where I asked to be placed in the cleft of a high rock.  I could then see Yah pass by but with his hand covering me.  This was so I could see His glory pass by but also it was a place of immense peace and safety.

"I have put My words in your mouth and have covered you with the shadow of My hand, to establish the heavens, to found the earth, and to say to Zion, 'You are My people."  Isaiah 51:16

So I have been able to stand against adversities and troubling storms of life by placing my full trust and confidence in the everlasting arms of Yahuwah my Salvation.  You can too as He is only a prayer away.

PRAYER: Oh Yah, how great and mighty is the power of your set apart name!  I also know that there is no other name given under heaven by which we must be saved.  That is Your Son Yahuwah and your name is truly in him.  Thank you Father for Your divine strength and power through Christ when mine so often fails.

Amen.