Topic: Christmas Devotion by Calvin Miller – When God Explains Himself
Have you ever hungered to understand the mysteries of God? So did Mary. “How can this be?” she asked. Even angels cannot explain the mysteries that underlie the miracles. We must learn to relax and trust the inscrutable God. For mystery is the heart of faith! Wrestle with it in the light, and it will evaporate. But enjoy the mysteries of God in all their hiddenness, and your life will thrive on the power of a God too vast for you to track.
How often we want to explain what we cannot figure out. But nothing that brings ultimate meaning to our lives is explainable. Such things are always beyond the safe, settled reach of the predictable. Consider this list of ultimate miracles, for they rest on the piers of an unsolvable mystery:
New birth. Jesus said this new birth was like the wind; we can hear the sound of it but cannot tell where it comes from or where it is going. “So it is with everyone born of the Spirit” (John 3:8). Salvation is both as mysterious and certain as the wind.
Our position in heaven. When James and John asked Jesus for positions of power in the new kingdom, He said, “To sit at My right and left is not Mine to give; instead, it belongs to those for whom it has been prepared by My Father” (Matthew 20:23). Jesus had to say that our position in heaven must remain a mystery while we are here on earth.
Time of His second coming. When asked when He would come to restore His kingdom on earth, Jesus said, “It is not for you to know times of periods that the Father has set by His own authority” (Acts 1:7). We are not allowed to know the time of His second coming, yet this mystery thrills us with moment-by-moment anticipation and expectancy. Many people have experienced the mystery of things too wonderful and too gloriously real ever to be explained. Yet for such mysteries envelop our redemption. Paul knew he could never explain God: he confessed that “the mystery of godliness is great” (I Timothy 3:16).
Mary at last came to understand that wonderful things happened when the Holy Spirit comes upon us and the power of the Almighty overshadows us.
See you Sunday!