2 Corinthians 4:16-17 So we do not lose heart. Though our outer self is wasting away, our inner self is being renewed day by day. For this light momentary affliction is preparing for us an eternal weight of glory beyond all comparison.

1. Jesus was born into our world in our flesh to live our life _____________and reign as our _____________.

2. Our greatest ________________is that we will not have a ______________ over us, no matter how wonderful He is.

3. The worst of ___________ ___________ cannot stop God from accomplishing His ____________ work in Christ for you.

Scripture Readings
Isaiah 63:7-14
Galatians 4:4-7
Matthew 2:13-23

Take It With You!

Here we will offer thoughts and meditations on the message to help us as we contemplate and discuss and wrestle with what we are hearing.

We resist evil with the ministry of the Word and sword, and yet, the evils which cannot be averted we bear to our great advantage but to their detriment and destruction.

In regard to this line of thought there is also a celebrated dictum of Gregory: "The ungodly do good to us by doing evil." And Augustine says of the infants slain by Herod that an enemy with his whole strength and all the resources of his kingdom could not have benefited the children more than by killing them.

Accordingly, God humbles those who are His to exalt them; He kills them to make them alive; He confounds them to glorify them; He makes them subject to raise them up.

When I am about to depart from this life, I support myself with this consolation that I believe in GodÕs Son. And yet I am buried; I am eaten by worms; I am consumed by the most foul rottennessÉHere I do not discern GodÕs plan, that although I die and rot away, I must at some time be revived. But God has promised and said (John 14:19) "You will live, for I live, and you will live. I am the Lord your God!" How? In eternal life and with a more beautiful and brighter body than the body of the sun.

-Martin Luther, Commentary on Genesis