This makes sense when we remember that we were created as worshiping beings. Our loving Creator made us to reflect His image and to enjoy Him forever. We were made to be a part of God’s big story and to live in His power and presence. We are wired to flourish when we admire, adore, and serve the Lord above all else.

But our hearts are darkened by unbelief, and we begin to look for love and meaning in other, lesser places. We see how this happened to the crowds in Lystra after Barnabas and Paul healed a disabled man. The Lystrans were starstruck. They were so impressed by the powerful miracle that they thought Barnabas and Paul must be the Greek gods Zeus and Hermes gracing them with their presence in human form. They began to worship and prepare sacrifices to them.

This was the opposite of the gospel Paul and Barnabas came to preach. Instead of recognizing and turning to the one true God, the crowds doubled down on their idolatry. Barnabas and Paul tore their clothes in anguish and pleaded with the crowd, “…turn from these worthless things to the living God, who made the heaven, the earth, the sea, and everything in them” (Acts 14:15).

Unbelief and confusion cloud our thinking as well. We may not worship Zeus or wooden statues, but we look for love, security, and meaning in other, lesser places too. Let’s be honest and ask ourselves what we are tempted to bow down to today. What do I prioritize before all else? What dominates my calendar and my checking account? What keeps me up at night? What does my mind turn to before my head even lifts off the pillow in the morning? Who or what do I feel like I can’t live without?

The restlessness we feel when we try to pin our hopes on something other than God is actually a gift. It reveals the truth that we were made to be part of God’s story, a beloved child of His eternal family. Anything other than Him leaves us wanting more. As Saint Augustine famously said, “Thou hast made us for Thyself, and our heart is restless till it rests in Thee.” What will we worship today?

When I read Paul’s letter to Philemon—a Christian who was also a slave owner—I confess that I want to be shielded from jarring talk of slavery, especially in the Bible. But nothing shielded the millions enslaved, past or present. We can’t look away from this brokenness in the world. We must consider what God is revealing through this letter about a runaway slave returning to his master.

Paul was imprisoned in Rome when he wrote to Philemon, a friend and ministry partner in Colossae. Paul knew bondage, and he knew the source of true freedom in Christ. He also lived in a time and place where slavery was society’s norm. Nearly one third of the Roman population was enslaved, which means master-slave dynamics were unavoidable. It’s essential to note that while Paul was describing and addressing an interpersonal conflict within the context of slavery, he was neither prescribing the system of slavery nor endorsing it as a good or godly practice.

Philemon’s runaway slave, Onesimus, had become a Christian through Paul’s ministry. He also became a faithful friend to Paul and could have continued living away from Philemon’s house. Yet Onesimus was compelled to return to Colossae and face his master. In preparation for Onesimus’s risky return, Paul sent Philemon a tactful letter, thanking him for being a faithful brother in Christ and pressing him to further exercise his faith by extending brotherly love and acceptance to Onesimus.

Paul urged Philemon to recognize and welcome Onesimus “no longer as a slave, but more than a slave—as a dearly loved brother” (Philemon 16). Requesting that the slave be treated as a brother was radical. Legally, Philemon could punish Onesimus or even kill him for running away. No one would expect him to treat his runaway slave with kindness, let alone regard him as kin. But Paul reminded Philemon that the gospel calls for deep reconciliation that gives birth to liberation.

As Paul wrote to the church in Galatia, “There is no Jew or Greek, slave or free, male and female; since you are all one in Christ Jesus” (Galatians 3:28). All believers in Christ are family. None is superior to another, and none can “own” another.

Each of us has been on the run. Each of us has been a slave to sin. Each of us has been forgiven and reconciled to God through Jesus and set free. May this truth refresh our hearts (Philemon 20). Jesus is not ashamed to call us kin (Hebrews 2:11), and He welcomes us into a right, good, and eternal relationship with Him. May we also remind each other that we abide in this space together as equals, sisters and brothers united in Christ.

Written by Patti Sauls

There’s a sigh in my soul as I struggle to accept two seemingly conflicting truths. For example, I can honestly love and respect someone yet not agree with everything they say or do. Or I can value working diligently and passionately yet also resist depending on my work to define me. Similarly, I can cherish having my children close yet launch them into independence. Sigh. A lot of life involves holding two truths in tension.

Isaiah’s prophetic message to the people of Judah challenged them to wrestle with two truths simultaneously as well. 

The first truth was a word of warning: God would oppose those who turned away from Him. God’s judgment would be fierce yet fair because the nation was following their leaders’ rebellion in worshiping false gods and forging allegiances with foreign kings. Judah was collectively rejecting their one true God and King. 

“Woe to those who go to great lengths to hide their plans from the LORD. They do their works in the dark, and say, ‘Who sees us? Who knows us?’” 
—Isaiah 29:15

Truth number one: There would be deep hurt if they continued to rebel against God. Their disobedience was exposed, and they could not hide from the consequences.

The second truth was a word of hope. Even amidst Judah’s rebellion, God promised that He would receive them with forgiveness and love if they opened their eyes to their sin and turned back to Him. With repentance comes restoration.

Therefore the LORD is waiting to show you mercy, and is rising up to show you compassion, for the LORD is a just God. All who wait patiently for him are happy.
—Isaiah 30:18 

Truth number two: There was deep hope in the promise that God was ready to receive and restore His wayward people. 

Hurt and hope intertwined? That can be a lot to hold. But these kinds of hurts often operate like a surgeon’s scalpel—with the goal of bringing healing. This restoration and relationship with God is our necessary, deep hope. Sigh. This is profound yet painful. Not all can accept the tension. 

For the Lord GOD, the Holy One of Israel, has said: “You will be delivered by returning and resting; your strength will lie in quiet confidence. But you are not willing.”
—Isaiah 30:15

Are we willing to open our eyes and admit when we seek ultimate peace, security, and well-being in anything other than God? This may be painful. Are we willing to hold the hurt of conviction and the loss of old habits, preferences, and addictions? 

Oh God, You make the pathway for repentance and restoration. Help us return to You as we hold the tension of hurt and hope today. Thank you for mercifully welcoming us back again and again. 

Written by Patti Sauls

We have over 8,000,000,000 neighbors at this moment, and we’re more interconnected and interdependent than ever before. This globalization can be fascinating, inspiring, and unifying. But it can also feel overwhelming and frightening, especially when we witness unrelenting conflict, cruelty, and suffering. Anxiety rises as we feel the weight of the world. We can hardly process it, let alone fix it. 

While we may emphasize the importance of our personal relationship with Jesus, we may not be as familiar with God’s design for the nations collectively. Yes, God sees us close up and loves us personally. But He also has a wide-angle vision and love for the world, and we see that unfold through God’s promises to Abraham. 

“I will make you into a great nation, I will bless you….all the peoples on earth will be blessed through you.”
—Genesis 12:2–3 

God planted Abraham and his family to grow a new community that would know and follow Him—the nation of Israel. And God promised Abraham that He would bless this new nation and all others through it. 

Fast forward 2,000 years or so, and a baby is born from Abraham’s lineage in Bethlehem. God blessed Israel through Abraham and expanded that blessing to all nations through Abraham’s descendant, Jesus. Jesus was also sent to grow a new community—a world-wide family of faith. 

Jesus’s disciple Peter helped connect these dots for the Jewish people. After he healed a crippled beggar at the temple in Jerusalem, Peter urged the astonished crowd to believe that the healing power came from the risen Messiah, Jesus. He reminded them that Abraham’s story and their own prophets foretold this Messiah who would bless and restore not only faithful Jewish followers but all nations.  

And Paul connected these dots for the Gentiles, too, teaching that this blessing and hope were for them by faith in Jesus too.

Now the Scripture…proclaimed the gospel ahead of time to Abraham, saying, All the nations will be blessed through you.”
—Galatians 3:8

This gospel was proclaimed ahead of time! And this is the good news for the nations: Jesus is God’s Son, who died for the weighty sin of the world. God welcomes all who believe that Jesus is the long-awaited Messiah and rely on Him. All are adopted as family, loved, and saved for eternity. There was a divine plan for the formation and restoration of Israel, and there’s a divine plan for the formation and restoration of God’s worldwide family of faith. There is hope for all neighbors and nations, “the hope of all the ends of the earth and of the distant seas” (Psalm 65:5).

Today’s passages remind us that, without Jesus, our spiritual vision is impaired too. On our own, we strain as we consider who God is and how we can be close to Him. Can I know God? Does God really love and accept me? Can I trust Him? The answers to such honest, human questions shape our faith and lives, yet they often seem blurry.

Paul wanted the church in Colossae to see the truth clearly. They had started with gospel clarity, seeing Jesus as the only one able to reconcile sinful people to a holy God, “by making peace through his blood, shed on the cross” (Colossians 1:20). But false teachers were misleading the church. They were instructing the Colossians to rely on their own efforts and enlightenment for right standing with God, instead of relying on the finished work of Jesus’s life, death, and resurrection. The issue was a Christ-centered worldview versus their self-centered worldview, which is a futile, tiring way to live.

Truth was being twisted and blurred, so Paul urged the Colossians to look to Christ. Relying on Christ alone was the only way to see and experience God with clarity and certainty. “[Jesus] is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn over all creation” (v.15). Jesus is the very image of God because He is God. When we look to Jesus—how He lived, how He loved, how He forgave, how He sacrificed to restore broken, lost people—we see how God relates to us.

Looking to Christ is like putting on eyeglasses so we can see God and ourselves more clearly. Looking to Christ means seeing and embracing the truth that He is Creator and King of every single thing in all creation—including our salvation, the daily ups and downs of our lives, and the state of the entire world.

To be sure, our vision is impaired and life can be a blur: morning-rush meltdowns, job hassles, relationship tensions, deep disappointments, fear of the future. We strain for clarity and control. But let us “not [shift] away from the hope of the gospel” (v.23). Is blurriness about God’s power and love becoming your new normal? Are you feeling the strain of relying more and more on yourself to push through each day? Put on your eyeglasses! Look to Christ, and rely on Him. Rest in Him.

Jesus, you see, rule, and restore all of your creation. Help us rely on You, to trust You to restore our sight too. Restore our vision of Your power and love. Amen.

In his letter to the church in Philippi, Paul was urging the impressionable believers to keep their focus on Christ. Paul longed for them to flourish in the faith, not to crash into walls of false teaching. In chapter 2, Paul warned the church against legalism, a deception that rejected the sufficiency of Christ’s righteousness that comes from God through faith. Then and now, legalistic thinking insists that it’s a person’s best efforts and striving that make them right with God and with other people. I crash into a wall of legalism when I assume God merely tolerates me instead of remembering that He deeply delights in me as His beloved daughter. I crash when I’m critical and judge others for not meeting my personal expectations and preferences.

In chapter 3, Paul warned against another danger. While speeding away from the wall of legalism, some may over-correct and ricochet into the wall of licentiousness. This deception insists on throwing off moral restraint in hopes of satisfying all appetites and desires. “Their end is destruction; their god is their stomach; their glory is their shame,” said Paul (Philippians 3:19). Licentiousness says “anything goes,” that if it feels good, you should do it. I crash into a wall of licentiousness when I pridefully believe that I’m above temptation and fail to recognize my need for God’s good boundaries. I crash when I foolishly allow my desires to drive me to do things that hurt myself and hurt others.

At the root of all legalism and licentiousness is a worship of self above all else. Paul is, in essence, warning, “Don’t look at the wall!” Where you look is where you go. When we focus on ourselves, it’s not long before we crash. But this does not need to rule us. We can stand firm in the Lord as we remember that our true citizenship, our true allegiance, is in heaven with God (v.20). May the Lord capture our hearts and affections, enabling us to focus on Him, worshiping Him alone. The One who made us is also the only One who can save us. Only He truly satisfies our deepest longings and desires, and only He can safely lead us home.

In my late twenties, in the midst of young marriage and new motherhood, the stream of anxiety became a flood. Panic attacks began to torment me. For the first time, my underground anxiety burst out and threatened to take center stage. I felt embarrassed and ashamed. I didn’t want to admit my confusing fears, and I certainly didn’t want others to see my struggle. After all, I was supposed to be the strong, steady one.

At this point in my talk, I told the women that I had a secret. I began unbuttoning my shirt. Awkward silence filled the room. Underneath my faded, denim top I wore a white t-shirt and cold, bulky metal chains. No one had suspected that I was wearing chains, yet they were there the whole time—pinching, constraining, and weighing me down. We don’t always know the chains people are wrapped up in, do we?

The apostle and missionary Paul wore chains too. In his letter to the believers in the city of Philippi, Paul explained that he was “in chains for Christ” as he endured house arrest (Philippians 1:13, NIV). For years he had been misunderstood, criticized, slandered, and beaten, and now he was jailed in Rome.

Some could view Paul as a failure. Some could question his faith or even the power or goodness of God. Yet Paul was convinced that his current suffering was nothing to be ashamed of or to hide. On the contrary, he insisted that his circumstances advanced the gospel message. He told the Philippians, “Because of my chains, most of the brothers and sisters have become confident in the Lord and dare all the more to proclaim the gospel without fear” (Philippians 1:14 NIV). Even in jail, Paul rejoiced that his guards were hearing about Jesus and that other believers were encouraged and empowered.

We may marvel at Paul’s perspective, but we can also hold both the redemption of our chains with the pain they cause. In 1 Corinthians 2, Paul revealed his own weakness, fear, and trembling (1Corinthians 2:3). Like Paul, we all chafe and wrestle with painful circumstances, those things we would never choose for ourselves. 

What pinches you, constrains you, or weighs you down? Our anxieties, our fears, our sufferings are heavy and costly. But we don’t have to hide them or be ashamed. Even our struggles can deepen our dependence on Christ and point others to the one who walks us through our darkest valleys and who redeems us—chains and all.

But what now? Being free from those things is part of the goodness of a snow day. But what am I now free to do? There’s so much potential: take a walk in the snowy sunshine, sink into a book, call far-away friends and family. But to be honest, it’s easy for me to squander my time. I’m tempted to sleep for hours and scroll the day away. To be clear—I’m all for rest, and I don’t want to pour guilt or shame on genuine replenishment. I just have to admit that I can get stuck in the kind of inactivity that doesn’t lead to flourishing.

In a similar way, Jesus followers can be tempted to squander grace. We rightly celebrate freedom from being slaves to sin and death. Bring on freedom from the burden of trying to earn God’s favor and love. Bring on freedom from the belief that external efforts will save us. This freedom is God’s gift accomplished through Jesus Christ and given to us. This is grace. It is deeply good, even essential, to let freedom ring.

For freedom, Christ set us free. Stand firm, then, and don’t submit again to a yoke of slavery. 
—Galatians 5:1

But what now? Being free from these things is just the beginning of the goodness of grace. What am I now free to do? I feel my chest tighten with fear and doubt as I consider this. Is grace about to become a grind? Is there a new to-do list? I know I will fall short. My heart is already condemning me. 

Now this is his command: that we believe in the name of his Son, Jesus Christ, and love one another as he commanded us.
—1 John 3:23 

Whew, it’s not a to-do list! It’s faith overflowing in love. I’m free to live fully and to love those around me. Because, as 1 John 3:19–20 says, “This is how we will know that we belong to the truth and will reassure our hearts before him whenever our hearts condemn us; for God is greater than our hearts, and he knows all things.” 

In Christ we already belong to the truth. We are free to express love in our actions—not as a way to earn a place in God’s heart but to celebrate that we’re already there. Faith-filled love in action is not always easy, but it is the only path of true blessing and flourishing. This is why we live in freedom. What might that specifically look like for each of us today?

I’ll never forget how Sue, my high-school ministry leader, greeted me the first time we met. Even though I had heard a lot about her from my friends, I still felt shy as we walked up her driveway and they swung open the back door without even knocking. My friends made themselves right at home, searching Sue’s refrigerator (that she always kept well stocked) for soda and plopping down on her kitchen stools. In walked Sue, laughing at our unannounced arrival and welcoming us all. Before I could awkwardly introduce myself, she greeted me by name.

Hearing Sue call me by name spoke to my longing to be known and stirred my hope for belonging. It meant the world to my insecure, 15-year-old self, and it means the world to me now. Little did I know that we would spend hours together, that she would share her life stories with me, and that she would explain the meaning of Jesus’s life, death, and resurrection to me. Little did I know that Sue and I would become friends for life.

Hearing Jesus describe Himself as the “good shepherd” also stirs my hope for belonging. His shepherd metaphor stops me in my hustling tracks and tugs at my solitary heart. “I am the good shepherd,” Jesus says. “The good shepherd lays down his life for the sheep” (John 10:11). This shepherd doesn’t merely offer the bare minimum; He offers His life. He is ready and willing to die in order to protect His sheep from attack. Jesus also says that the good shepherd “calls his own sheep by name and leads them out” (v.3). He doesn’t casually regard the flock as a random collection of animals. He leads them out to pasture where He satisfies their hunger and thirst. Not only that, but He knows each one intimately, and He calls them by name.

Do we hear Jesus’s voice? Do we hear His promises? Jesus promises the ultimate belonging: to be fully known and fully loved by Him forever. He says to every one of His followers, “I see you. I know you intimately. I know your deepest hunger and thirst. I love you. I will provide for you and protect you, even if it means laying down my life.” And, it did—it cost Him everything—Jesus died to divinely and decisively deal with the sin that separates us from God. He died once and for all so that we can be united with Him forever.

Even though it is hard for us to imagine life without end, this is His promise: “I give them eternal life, and they will never perish. No one will snatch them out of my hand” (v.28). Jesus protects His flock and seals the deal for those who hear Him and follow. “Therefore, whether we live or die, we belong to the Lord” (Romans 14:8). He calls each by name to be with Him and to become friends for life—both now and for eternity.

What makes Christmas hit deep for you? For me, it’s a lump in my throat as I carefully unpack my grown daughters’ handmade childhood ornaments. Or it’s a heart pang when I hear the first slow, somber notes of “What Child Is This?” If I pause and pay attention, I feel deep longings for home, belonging, peace, and hope. How does a baby in a Bethlehem manger unlock the mystery of these powerful feelings? 

A look at ancient Israel gives us some answers. Second Samuel 7 records God’s covenant with His nation and His chosen leader, King David. God promised to sustain David’s legacy and lineage, to give His people a protected homeland, and to enable David’s son, Solomon, to build a house for His presence to dwell in instead of a tent (2Samuel 7:10–13). What a promise! God would give His people a safe place to call home, a chosen line of kings to lead them, and permanent access to Himself.

But wait, there’s more. Watch this promise deepen and expand. His genealogy in Matthew 1 tells us that He was born into the family tree of King David, which qualified Him to have a significant leadership role in Israel. Yes, God promised that Jesus was to be included in the line of David. But that pales in comparison to His deeper, divine birthright. The angel told Mary, “You will conceive and give birth to a son, and you will name him Jesus. He will be great and will be called Son of the Most High, and the Lord God will give him the throne of his father David (Luke 1:31–32).

Jesus is the Son of God, “…the Holy One, the true one, the one who has the key of David…” (Revelation 3:7). Jesus, the key of David, unlocked the shackles of sin and death. He faced and fought death—and won.

“I was dead, but look—I am alive forever and ever, and I hold the keys of death and Hades.” 
—Revelation 1:18  

As His people, Jesus frees us from the prison of sin and sorrow and delivers us from brokenness and death itself. He leads us, protects us, and prepares an eternal home where we will dwell with Him in peace. Do you see how God’s ancient covenant with King David expands and culminates in Jesus ruling and reigning forever? Jesus is the ultimate Son, ultimate King, and ultimate deliverer. He brings us home.Notice that when God is speaking to David, we see the word forever three times (2Samuel 7:13,16). In King Jesus, our deepest longings for home, belonging, community, and hope are fulfilled forever, forever, forever! This is why Christmas hits deep. Part of that community touches us right now as we read together and know that we’re not alone in pausing and paying attention to what this week before Christmas unlocks for us. O key of David, come!