Have You Nailed It This Christmas And New Year

Have you Nailed it this Christmas and New Year?

Have you nailed it this Christmas and New Year? We cannot nail a crocked nail into wood. A crooked nail is of no use. To nail it means to get something perfect. My elder daughter was born on Christmas day, a perfect Christmas gift for me and my wife. I called her Kezia after Job’s daughter and that too before I came to The Lord. I want to show you the nail of God’s perfect Love and perfect gift.

Celebration of a birth is less offensive than celebration of a death. The birth of our Lord is the embodiment of this perfect love. This embodiment of God made possible Christ’s death on the cross, or else there would have been no resurrection and we would still be in our sins. There would be no hope. The hope we have of resurrection of our bodies to everlasting life. God is Love (1Jn 4:8). As a preacher said, it does not say that God loves or that God is loving. The Word says God is love! It is an attribute - it is God’s very being. “Is” is the conjugation of the verb “to be”, so without conjugating the verb it will read like this “to be love”, a derivative of to exist. Love is God’s very being, is it not? Do you not feel love around Christmas, even the atheist does? If he does not like it like Grump, he will come around to feeling it! The marketplace distorts this Christian symbol, but it cannot hide the love of God that is all pervasive and prevailing around the world. It is this love of God in His word that our passage speaks of today.

Let us read Ps 119:41-48.

(Psa 119:41 ESV+) “Waw”, Let your steadfast love come to me, O LORD, your salvation according to your promise;

(Psa 119:42 ESV+). Then shall I have an answer for him who taunts me, for I trust in your word.

(Psa 119:43 ESV+) And take not the word of truth utterly out of my mouth, for my hope is in your rules.

(Psa 119:44 ESV+) I will keep your law continually, forever and ever,

(Psa 119:45 ESV+) and I shall walk in a wide place, for I have sought your precepts.

(Psa 119:46 ESV+) I will also speak of your testimonies before kings and shall not be put to shame,

(Psa 119:47 ESV+) for I find my delight in your commandments, which I love.

(Psa 119:48 ESV+) I will lift up my hands toward your commandments, which I love, and I will meditate on your statutes.

Summary:

The psalmist calls upon the loving kindness of the Lord that he sees in His word and his promised salvation to counter the adversary that taunts him. He affirms the truth of the word of God and will counter the taunts as he trusts in the promises of God. The psalmist prays that God fulfils His promises, He won’t shut his mouth having no answer for his adversary, because he trusts God’s promises. He avers this will motivate him strongly to always live a life according to His word, he will also live this life of freedom in his walk. He will testify of the Lord’s word even to authorities or powerful adversaries. The psalmist does this as He says “Lord you know I delight in living a life according to your word as I love you and your word. And as for the answer I seek for my adversary who taunts me, I will leave the judgement to you and the promise in your word that I love, and I will seek you continuously in your word”.

God always delivers according to His love and promise, so always love and trust Him by being faithful to His word, leaving all to Him

The Psalm is an acrostic psalm, and this section begins with “waw”. The symbol for this letter is a tent peg or a big nail. Let’s nail it today by understanding God’s love better. Thus, we can experience it and so that we can make a resolution that is the fountainhead of all the New Year resolutions we may want to make.

1. Christmas the embodiment of God’s Love 41-42

This book that we, the Gideons, distribute free is the complete panorama of God’s love, the embodiment of God’s love; the incarnation of Christ is at the fulcrum. Christmas did not begin in a manger in Bethlehem. Christmas began even before the foundation of the world. We first hear of it in Gen 3:15, the Protoevangel Gospel. The consistency of the embodiment of God’s love that led up to the Christ Jesus the babe with whom we celebrate the season, spans 6 millennia from the garden of Eden to Seth, to Noah, Abraham to Jacob, to Judah, to David, to Christ, to he Cross. Let us not shy away! The word love occurs 18 times in this psalm and 3 times in this section in the English ESV. The whole psalm is about the psalmist’s love for God in His word. It is seen more so in this section, throwing light on God’s love. (Psa 119:41 ESV+) Waw Let your steadfast love come to me, O LORD, your salvation according to your promise; This Christmas let us pray with confidence as the psalmist did. Let your steadfast love come to me, O Lord, this Christmas so that I may nail it and understand it perfectly from your word.