Daily Devotional For Friday, December 13, 2024

One of my favorite words in the Christmas story is in this description of what happened to the shepherds. Our word for today is SUDDENLY. The Bible says in Luke 2:9 this. “Suddenly, an angel of the Lord appeared among them, and the radiance of the Lord’s glory surrounded them. They were terrified . . . (NLT). The shepherd’s story of faith begins with the word for today: SUDDENLY. It’s amazing to think about how suddenly faith can change everything. We see it in the Christmas story as well as the Easter story.

So they went in, but they didn’t find the body of the Lord Jesus. As they stood there puzzled, two men suddenly appeared to them, clothed in dazzling robes. The women were terrified and bowed with their faces to the ground. Then the men asked this in Luke 24:3-6:

“So they went in, but they didn’t find the body of the Lord Jesus. (4) As they stood there puzzled, two men suddenly appeared to them, clothed in dazzling robes. (5) The women were terrified and bowed with their faces to the ground. Then the men asked, “Why are you looking among the dead for someone who is alive? (6) He isn’t here! He is risen from the dead!” (NLT).

Before Paul was an apostle, you might remember that he was a persecutor of the church. One day, everything changed for him — suddenly. His testimony is in Acts 22:6, “As I was on the road, approaching Damascus about noon, a very bright light from heaven suddenly shone down around me” (NLT). You might look at yourself and think that nothing good has ever “suddenly” happened for you. Even your faith came to you slowly as you grew from childhood. It’s just a normal, routine, boring existence for you. Maybe something suddenly bad has happened to you, but not suddenly good. Let me encourage you — there are two powerful and suddenly wonderful things that have happened and will happen for everyone who puts faith in Jesus.

1. First, your spirit was suddenly changed. 2 Corinthians 5:17 says, This means that anyone who belongs to Christ has become a new person. The old life is gone; a new life has begun!” (NLT).  You became a new person the moment you put your faith in Jesus. I know. You look the same on the outside and might even feel much the same on the inside. That does not change the fact that God changed you. You will spend the rest of your life on this earth catching up to the sudden changes that God worked in you the moment you were saved: suddenly, you were rescued; suddenly you were made holy; suddenly you were given a spiritual gift; suddenly you were made a part of God’s family.
2. Second, your body will be suddenly changed. Look at 1 Corinthians 15:52, "It will all happen in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, when the last trumpet is blown. For there will be a trumpet blast from the sky, and all the Christians who have died will suddenly become alive, with new bodies that will never, never die; and then we who are still alive shall suddenly have new bodies too" (TLB).

As if changing our spirit were not enough, one day God will also change our bodies as well. In the twinkling of an eye, suddenly, He will give you a glorified body that will never die. The sudden faith and hope that God brings to us are not just for some long-ago Christmas or for people who are in the Bible. “Suddenly” is part of your story. This Christmas, live in the appreciation and anticipation of what God has suddenly done for you!

Suddenly is something we all experience at times. For example, on a Sunday afternoon we all were taking a nap after church on August 9, 2020. Suddenly, lightning hit our chimney and blew it to pieces, causing some of the chimney to come through the roof and ceiling. Anything plugged in electrically was fried. On September 9, 2019, while cycling around Greenfield Lake, suddenly I had a stroke and went blind. When things happen suddenly, we are usually caught off guard and shocked. Those shepherds in that field that night were not expecting angels to appear and start singing. It had to have terrified them. 

Consider the true story below:

“It's 3:30 in the morning. You're sound asleep, but suddenly the light comes on in your room. You open your eyes only to see a stranger standing in your doorway. It sounds like the beginning of a horror movie, but it's exactly what happened to Andy Armstrong of Alexandria, Minnesota—and the stranger in his doorway had just miraculously survived a devastating car accident.

Armstrong had "forgotten to lock a house door" before heading to bed that night; that's how James Sundby had found his way inside, staying inside the house for an unknown amount of time before he came into Armstrong's room. Armstrong (forcefully) told him to leave, and Sundby—with "his face banged up, his sleeves bloodied"—replied, "Oh, man, I'm sorry. I think I'm in the wrong house … I crashed my car." He refused help, however, and left the house (with Armstrong's shoes on).

Checking his house, Armstrong noticed "blood on the kitchen counter and a little bit on the floor." He called the police, who found Sundby in the neighborhood around 20 minutes afterwards.

In the morning, "it was clear what happened: [Sundby had blown] through the stop sign at a T in the road, barreled through a yard, and launched his car off a 35-foot to 40-foot embankment, clearing a span of open water on Lake Le Homme Dieu, before landing on the season's remaining ice." Yet Sundby, who "had no drugs or alcohol in his system and [didn't] remember what happened," was—extraordinarily—alive” (Source: Mary Lynn Smith, "Surviving a crash, disoriented driver wanders into Minnesota home," Star Tribune, 3-16-17.)

We like to think we are in charge and have control, but the truth is much of our lives are beyond our control as Andy Armstrong discovered above. For you, “suddenly” might be the shocking news that someone you loved suddenly died. For most of us “Suddenly” is not good news, but bad news. In this case, it was not only good news, the best news. God’s Messiah had been born.

In Luke 2:10, the angels said they brought good news. The Greek New Testament word is [εὐαγγελίζω, euaggelizo]. This is where we get our English word evangelism. It is often translated as “Gospel.’ This Greek verb is found 11 times in the Gospels, but 10 of them are in Luke’s Gospel. 

Questions To Consider

1. On Easter morning, the women went to the tomb to embalm the body of Jesus. When they go there, they see the stone rolled away and the Roman seal on it broken. Panic and fear had to hit them. All of a sudden two angels appeared to them. This has to scare them to death as well. What do you think was a more frightful “suddenly”? – the stone rolled away, the Roman seal broken, the body of Jesus missing or the 2 angels who appeared to them out of nowhere? Why?
2. What is something that happened suddenly in your life or your family’s life and how did you deal with it?
3. Because we like to think we are in control of our lives, we do not like it when life suddenly sends us a “curve ball.” What is a “sudden” or “suddenly” you have had to trust God as Mary did and the women at the empty tomb did? What was the most challenging part of that for you and why?
4. If you have children or grandchildren with you, as them what has been a shock or surprise to them that they did not know was going to happen. Ask them to share with you the impact on them.

Scripture To Meditate On: Proverbs 28:18, Whoever walks in integrity will be delivered, but he who is crooked in his ways will suddenly fall” (ESV).

Prayer To Pray: “Father, although my days and my life may seem routine at times, I know that, in truth, they are not. You are working a miracle of change in my spirit that matches the new creation you have made of me in Christ. And I am living this life looking forward to a miracle of change that I will enjoy forever. I ask that those truths would empower the way I look at my life today. I know that whatever may come suddenly upon me You have it covered. I love You Jesus.  In Jesus’ name I pray, Amen.”

I love you Southside!--Pastor Kelly