Dear friends in the Lord!
How are you?
We've seen an successful end of term and on the last day we got the good news, that David has a place at Springvale House - the school we really wanted him to go to!!! Halleluja!!!
We praise God for it and all His faithfulnes througout this term!!!
The scripture teaching went well in the schools and in the orphanage. God is so good!!!
We wish you all a blessed festive season!
With love, your Waldvogel Family
Ps. We should hear from the Immigration in about 3 weeks regarding our permanet residency. Please pray on! Thanks for all your support
Today is the fifth day of advent. If you would like a devotional to take you through this period there is a free PDF download of John Piper's devotional book "The Dawning of Indestructible Joy" : http://www.desiringgod.org/books/the-dawning-of-indestructible-joy (Copy and past into your browser) It's an excellent tool, recomended by Doug from our home fellowship.
DECEMBER 5
Why Christmas Happened
You know that he appeared in order to take away sins, and in him there is no sin. . . . The reason the Son of God appeared was to destroy the works of the devil.
1 JOHN 3:5, 8
Two times in 1 John 3:1–10 we are told why Christmas happened—that is, why the eternal, divine Son of God came into the world as human.
In verse 5, John says, "You know that he appeared to take away sins, and in him there is no sin." So the sinlessness of Christ is affirmed—"In him there is no sin." And the reason for his coming is affirmed—"He appeared in order to take away sins."
Then in the second part of verse 8, John says, "The reason the Son of God appeared was to destroy the works of the devil." And the specific focus John has in mind when he says "works of the devil" is the sin that the Devil promotes. We see
that in the first part of verse 8: "Whoever makes a practice of sinning is of the devil, for the devil has been sinning from the beginning." So the works of the Devil that Jesus came to destroy are the works of sin.
So two times John tells us that Christmas happened—the Son of God became human—to take away sin, or to destroy the works of the Devil, namely, sin. Jesus was born of a virgin by the Holy Spirit (Matt. 1:18–20) and "increased in wisdom and in stature and in favor with God and man" (Luke 2:52) and was perfectly obedient and sinless in all his life and ministry, all the way to the point of death, even death on a cross (Phil. 2:5–8; Heb. 4:15)—in order to destroy the works of the Devil—to take away sin.
Our sin. Make this personal and love him for it. Take the very personal words of the apostle Paul and make them your own. "The life I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me" (Gal. 2:20). This is how he destroyed the works of the Devil and rescued us from our sin. Don't leave Christmas in the abstract. Your sin. Your conflict with the Devil. Your victory. He came for this.
