THE SIGN

 THE SIGN 

This will be a sign for you: you will find a baby wrapped in cloths and lying in a manger.” Luke 2:12

A sign is a mark that helps you understand and know the code.

It helps you to decode

It is the mark that helps you to decern

"Wrapped in swaddling cloths"

Two (2) powerful points to note:

1. Many a time, God's mark is simple and never complex.

2. Signs are wrapped, it will take people with kingdom keys to unwrap it. Access to kingdom mysteries is important for every believer.

God reveals Himself to those who have a willingness to believe.

One thing that characterizes the religious folks during the time if Jesus was that they were sign crazy. The Lord Jesus said, “A wicked and adulterous generation seeketh after a sign” when the Pharisees and Sadducees tempted Him, seeking a sign from Heaven. The truth is they had been given literally every sign in the Book about the birth of the Lord Jesus yet they didn't know.

When King Herod wanted to know where the King of the Jews was to be born, he promptly asked the chief priests and the scribes. Knowing the Scriptures, they told Herod that the King was to be born in Bethlehem of Judaea. And yet none of these students of the Scriptures joined the wise men from afar to seek for the Child that was so close at hand. Were they lacking a sign, or were they simply so hardened that they stumbled over a multitude of signs that God had given centuries before regarding the Christ Child?

This is very crucial to understand that knowledge without revelation (light) will make you religious. But when God opens Himself to you from His word, you live in the instant experience of His word.

Nothing amplifies word experience like access to light (revelation) to the signs God flashes constantly.

Your willingness to search for the sign He gives you is a mark of your deep hunger and desire for God and as you keep following, then you will come to the place where you will see Him just like the wise men saw Him.

God spoke years ago, others where in the temple reading Scripts others caught the revelation of His arrival and went all the way to search Him out.

Today's text is a refreshing contrast to the knowledgeable skeptics. The angels gave the glorious news to shepherds tending sheep in the countryside. God Jehovah had sent the Savior, His Messiah, the Lord! What sign would God give them that they had found this Gift of God? No doubt, the religious leaders of the day would have sought some spectacular “sign from Heaven”. But to the shepherds, the angels said, “And this shall be a sign unto you; ye shall find the babe wrapped in swaddling clothes, lying in a manger.”

A baby wrapped in swaddling clothes was the sign that they were in the right place? A manger?! That was to be the “sign”? And yet the shepherds went with haste. The Bible then says, “And the shepherds returned, glorifying and praising God for all the things that they had heard and seen, as it was told unto them.” Just what exactly had they seen? They had seen the Messiah, the Savior of the world! They had seen a baby wrapped in swaddling clothes, lying in a manger. It was sufficient for them. They had willing hearts.

Years later, One did arise from the dead. Also wrapped in linen clothes and thus became a sign that He is alive (Luke 24:12). And those who had ignored Jesus’ birth denied His resurrection. An angel from Heaven was not about to change the darkened hearts that had ignored God’s Word from Heaven. And yet, whenever there is a heart to believe the truth, there are eyes to see the truth. When we, with believing hearts, take God at His Word, we have the ability to see what both shepherds and wise men saw. God has sent His Gift, just as He said He would!

My counsel to you today is to accept the simplicity of God's direction. And open your heart to His light.

Have a blessed Christmas