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I'm honored that you've allowed me to be a part of your Christian life.  Please return often for fellowship, study and prayer.  Thank you very much for visiting.
Love & Hugs,
Glen

The Childhood of Jesus serves to teach us many things about our own lives. These 3 episodes in particular show us that even our problems serve to further God's plan. This lesson is about looking deeper than what bothers us today to find the working of God. 

Harmony Of The Gospels Series 2, Mt 2:1-23, Lk 2:41-52

For more information about Jesus see these books on the History of Jesus Christ.

Here are some best-selling books about The Childhood of Jesus.  Be careful...some of these are from people trying to confuse things...take only Scripture as truth.  Then you're safe to see some of the outlandish things people say about our Lord. 

The Childhood Of Jesus

The Childhood of Jesus teaches us, among many things, that our struggles and challenges aren't the whole story.  We struggle through life, seeing things that seem inconsistent with a loving God. We face death of loved ones, even our own, serious illness, employment problems, problems with family relationships, lack of money. We see trouble and destruction every time we turn on the TV. We can begin to think, 'If there is a God…why this?' I've had those feelings, recently, even though I've been a minister over 9 years. I know and love the Lord and still face things I don't understand. About 2 years ago, my brother Martin went to the doctor and found out he might have cancer…12 weeks later he was dead. My Mom died 11 weeks after that, but it was expected…she was old…her children were raised. My brother was just 51. He left a daughter, age 16, and a son, age 13. It's the kind of thing that makes us ask, why this? No matter who you are or where you are, I know you have things just like this going on in your life. If you don't…praise God…you will! Sometimes we begin to think, 'God's punishing me because of my sin.' Maybe when things are good we get that last thought's arrogant cousin, 'God is blessing me because of how good I've been.' Both thoughts are wrong! Jesus said, 'it rains on the just and unjust, alike.' Our Bible text today, shows good and bad things happening to His people. It teaches us:

God can take us past our bad problems to His plan which is always good.

We'll look at 3 stories from the childhood of Jesus that teach us in God's kingdom there's always more than meets the eye. For six years of my ministry career I taught, counseled, sang and visited in retirement and nursing homes along with my other responsibilities. One day I was visiting a woman in her room and, as the conversation was continuing, I noticed a little bowl of peanuts on her nightstand. I asked if I could have one and she said, "Of course, dearie, have as many as you want." I had one, and, another. In fact, by the time the conversation was done, so were the nuts. As I was leaving, I asked her to forgive me for eating all her peanuts. She said, "Oh, that's all right, dearie, I've already sucked all the chocolate off of them, anyway." The moral of the story is there's always more than meets the eye. We'll look at 3 stories as Jesus is growing up…Visit of the Magi, Vacating to Egypt and Vanishing Child.

1. Visit of the Magi:

You all know the story from the Christmas carol, "We three kings from orient are, bearing gifts, we traverse afar, field and fountain, moor and mountain, following yonder star…"

Beside the point: There are only 3 things wrong with the premise of this song: a. They weren't kings. The Bible calls them Magi, followers of the Magian religion. Some translations call them wise men. These were not Jewish people. 'Magian' is the Greek word we get the English word 'magician' from. They were Eastern mystics, who ended up to be some of the first Christians, by worshiping Jesus.  b. They didn't arrive at Jesus' birth. Based on our Scripture text, Jesus would be at least one year old, as much as 2, when they arrived at his "house" not the manger.  c. There is no Scriptural evidence that there were three of them…just more than one.  This leads us to an important side point to today's study. Get your Bible from the Bible, not a song, not another book, not a denomination, not a church, not another person, not even me! Read it yourself! Don't take anyone else's position as fact until you've seen what His Word says.

Back to the main message!

A. The Visit was God led: Mt 2:2 "Where is the one who was born king of the Jews? We saw His star in the East." Vs 9-10 "When they saw the star they were overjoyed…the star…went ahead of them…stopped over the house…" I saw a movie, recently, that included this story. It showed the star as a comet, which seems to be the popular opinion. Isn't interesting how we try to take the supernatural and make it natural? It's true, because of the rotation of the Earth, a comet would lead from East to West, but that's the only thing about a comet that matches the Biblical account. The Biblical context shows the star was present more than one year (vs 7, 16), comets are visible only for several days as they pass by. The Bible says the star led them from Jerusalem to Bethlehem (vs 9). If it was a comet, it would have to travel West for a year and make a sharp left turn over Jerusalem to go South to Bethlehem. The Bible says it stopped over the house Jesus lived in, comets don't stop unless they hit something. The Magi knew the star indicated the birth of the King of the Jews.

Let's be straight…God led the Magi with a miraculous image in the sky which we don't understand. He led them to Jesus. If God is small enough for us to understand, He isn't big enough to help us.

Continued at The Childhood Of Jesus-2

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