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Advent Devotional - December 15, 2016

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“This day is born a Saviour / Of a pure Virgin bright, / To free all those who trust in Him / From Satan’s power and might. / O tidings of comfort and joy”

-God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen

Luke 2:8-20 tells us how shepherds watching their flocks in a field suddenly became the first to hear God’s comforting news to his distressed people of a rescuer: Jesus, whose very name means “Savior.” He would save his people from their sins if they would only trust in Him; he would save them from the guilt of sin by the merit of his death on the cross, and the power of sin by his Holy Spirit.

The virgin Mary’s thoughtful obedience to God is worthy of our imitation. The miraculous, virgin birth of Jesus fulfills Old Testament prophecy and therefore is astonishing grounds for our confidence in God. “Behold, the virgin shall conceive and bear a son, and shall call His name Emmanuel (Isaiah 7:14b).

Satan’s name means “adversary.” The picture we have of Satan in the New Testament is of deception and cruelty against humanity and God’s people in particular. He actively undermines faith, hope, and the Christian’s character.

To acknowledge Satan’s existence and power does not mean he is God’s equal. He is an already defeated foe, having no more power than God allows. To say that we are constantly at war with him does not take away our responsibility for our actions. Yet, we will triumph over him through the spirit of Christ. “Greater is he that is within you than he that is within the world” (1 John 4:4).

Surely that young virgin girl would have acutely felt Satan’s shaming power as she underwent scorn and shame for her “unplanned pregnancy.” Surely she would have known experientially Satan’s might as she and her newlywed husband fled from kings to save the life of their newborn son. But oh how the fear and trouble she felt from the first foretelling of Jesus’ birth (Luke 2:29) would turn to comfort and joy! What comfort it must have been to her –and to us– to know that as the angels sang of the publication of Jesus’ birthdate, they were simultaneously singing of the publication of Satan’s expiration date. Indeed, what comfort and joy it is to know that “the reason the Son of God appeared was to destroy the works of the devil” (1 John 3:8).