Twenty-third Day of Advent

 Monday, December 21, 2020

Tell Me About the Christmas Baby:
An Advent Devotional Guide

“You are my friends if you do what I command you. I no longer call you servants because a servant does not know his master’s business. Instead, I have called you friends, for everything I learned from my Father I have made known to you.”
John 15:15

Isn’t it amazing to know that Jesus – the Man and the Christ – calls us His friends? It’s easy to get so engrossed in the joy of being his friend that we overlook important conditions in the verse above.

One of our youth told me recently that a disciple is the protégé of someone whom he/she admires and chooses as a role model. I really like that definition. So do we choose Jesus, the Man/Christ, as our role model? Do we obey His words as He obeyed the Father, even to death on a cruel cross? Do we seek to learn from the Father as Jesus says He has learned from the Father?

We enjoy knowing we are His friends, but are we only in the friendship for what we can get out of it? Life eternally? Hope for today? Right standing with God when we die? Friendship is a two-way street and if we don’t contribute to the friendship, we are pretty poor friends. Paul says that we can know this friend “in the power of His resurrection and have fellowship with Him in His suffering.” (Philippians 3:10) Do we share this kind of friendship with Jesus?

Father, We are so grateful that the Christmas baby grew up to call us friends. Help us to be good friends to Him. Amen.

Tell Me About the Christmas Baby:
An Advent Devotional Guide

prepared for First United Methodist Church of Homosassa, Florida
Winter 2010
by Patience Nave, Christian Education Coordinator