GLOBAL IMPLICATIONS

“Don’t be afraid!” [the angel] said. “I bring you good news that will bring great joy to all people. The Savior -- yes, the Messiah, the Lord -- has been born today in Bethlehem, the city of David!”  (Luke 2:10b-11 NLT)

Computers are amazing. I [remember discovering] Google Earth that connects to the Internet and begins with a digital picture of the earth on the screen. With a few clicks of the mouse, you can zoom in on a country. A few more clicks and you can zoom in on a state, on a city, on a neighborhood, on a street, and eventually, even on a house. The entire program was put together using data and pictures collected by satellites that orbit the earth. It is an amazing thing to start with the globe and slowly zoom in on virtually any location around the world.

Reading Christmas Day Scriptures is like Google Earth in reverse. We start a specific focus on an overcrowded inn, one with a small stable in the back where a birth is taking place. We back up a little further, and we discover all this is happening in a town called Bethlehem, not far from the outskirts of Jerusalem. A few more clicks and we realize that we are in Israel during the time of Roman occupation. A few more clicks and we see the entire globe affected by the events in the city of David; but in this case, there are a few more mouse clicks to go. With an additional click, we begin to cross more than geographical boundaries and see the world before Jesus' time, during Jesus' time, and stretching into the world of future generations to come. What took place in Bethlehem that first Christmas has global implications for all people, at all times, in all nations.

-- Kevin Baker in “Hail the Heaven Born”


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FULFILLING THE GREAT COMMISSION

Jesus said, "Therefore go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you. And surely I am with you always, to the very end of the age." (Matthew 28:19-20 NIV)

We are to go -- whether it is next door or to another country -- and make disciples. It is not an option but a command to all who call Jesus "Lord". We are not all evangelists in the formal sense, but we have all received gifts that we can use to help fulfill the great commission. 

-- from the “Life Application Bible”


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