January 2: …Who Gave Birth to Jesus

Affirmation: I am at the right place at the right time doing the right thing.

~~~~~~~~
Ponder, Personalize, Practice: Begin to personalize Psalm 51:10. Talk to God about your heart…what you are celebrating, what you want to change.

“Create in me a pure heart, O God, and renew a steadfast spirit within me.”
‭‭Psalms‬ ‭51‬:‭10‬ ‭NIV‬‬
https://bible.com/bible/111/psa.51.10.NIV

~~~~~~~
(Bob Goff will begin again tomorrow or Saturday.)
Praying the Message of Jesus: A Year of Thoughts and Prayers
by Eugene Peterson 

JANUARY 2 
. . . Who Gave Birth to Jesus 

“Abraham had Isaac, Isaac had Jacob, Jacob had Judah and his brothers, Judah had Perez and Zerah (the mother was Tamar), Perez had Hezron, Hezron had Aram, Aram had Amminadab, Amminadab had Nahshon . . . Eliud had Eleazar, Eleazar had Matthan, Matthan had Jacob, Jacob had Joseph, Mary’s husband, the Mary who gave birth to Jesus, the Jesus who was called Christ. There were fourteen generations from Abraham to David, another fourteen from David to the Babylonian exile, and yet another fourteen from the Babylonian exile to Christ. MATTHEW 1:2-4, 15-17 

The biblical fondness for genealogical lists is not dull obscurantism, it is an insistence on the primacy and continuity of people. Each name is a burnished link connecting God’s promises to his fulfillments in the chain of people who are the story of God’s mercy. 

Which of these names stands out for you? 

Some of these names I don’t recognize at all, God. And that is reassuring! I don’t have to be an Abraham or a David to be included in this salvation litany. My ordinariness is as essential as another’s extraordinariness. 
Thank you. 
Amen.

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