Galatians 3:26-29 You are all sons of God through faith in Christ Jesus, for all of you who were baptized into Christ have clothed yourselves with Christ. There is neither Jew nor Greek, slave more free, male nor female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus. If you belong to Christ, then you are Abraham's seed, and heirs according to the promise.

1. We tend to try and ____________ Jesus to our ____________ and make Him more like ____________.

2. But, we have no say in ____________ Jesus is, nor in what He ____________.

3. Jesus comes according to God's ____________ to do God's ____________ in God's ____________.


Scripture Readings
Isaiah 7:10-17
Romans 1:1-7
Matthew 1:18-25

Take It With You!

As we learn how to live as disciples of Jesus Christ, here helpful tools will be offered to aid in your study.

But if we are to keep "the reason" in "the season" once again this December 25, then we should remember the most marvelous fact of the incarnation. It is that this Jesus of Nazareth whom Christians celebrate had this remarkable capacity to both defy and overwhelm nearly every human conception people had of him. So, just when we think Jesus is some manly man among men who has nothing to do with anything "pansy" (Driscoll's word), he cries out, "O Jerusalem, Jerusalem,...how often I have longed to gather your children together, as a hen gathers her chicks under her wings" (Matthew 23:37). And just when people began to believe that Jesus was simply meek, mild, and milquetoast, he stared hypocrisy in the face and "made a whip out of cords, and drove all from the temple area... He scattered the coins of the money changers and overturned their tables" (John 2:15).

Matter of fact, it's curious that, as this account is told in the Gospel of John, it comes almost right after the first chapter, which will be read in thousands of churches on Christmas morning, the account of how "the Word became flesh and made his dwelling among us" (John 1:14).

Because maybe the whole point of this incarnation thing is how God, in Jesus of Nazareth, is always turning over the tables of our own hearts, scattering all our ideas about who we think he should be. Jesus always seems to have this habit of defying all the expectations we have about him. As it turns out, Jesus is always more (and often less) than what we ever expect him to be. In the end, that's what makes the Christ child worth celebrating every December 25, and worth following every day in between.

Travis Scholl, "Who is Jesus? Depends on Whose Jesus It Is," St. Louis Post-Dispatch
http://bit.ly/travis-scholl-who-is-jesus-2013-12