Luke 2:1 And it came to pass in those days, that there went out a decree from Caesar Augustus that all the world should be taxed.

How many times have you heard the passages in Luke recited in Christmas pageants? Perhaps you participated in them yourselves. It is difficult to believe that one could grow up in America during the 50’s and 60’s without encountering Christmas pageants.

What I want to discuss here is the trail we have followed that began in Ezekiel 12. If you were to peradventure where we would have ended up from that humble beginning, the Good News might not have come to mind. Most devotional writers do not write as if our articles are sermons.

This whole series has been from a spiritual perspective about how and why God leads us in fellowship. Line upon line and precept upon precept, God has a plan for His word and its reading. All throughout the bible God has layered in messages leading us to the Good News, the gospel of Christ. It is easy to get lost in the minutia. Studying a verse in any depth should not lead you to a conclusion, it should lead you on to the next thread. Finding those threads and pulling on those strings should make the story unfold.

I grew up in a time when our churches were occupied by sinners who had not confessed Christ. Every sermon ended with an alter call. It was inevitable and became so blatant that there was a total disconnect between the message and the alter call. There was an attitude of get them in and we will save them. There wasn’t much personal ministry where the lay people knew and delivered the Good News from their own lives. “That’s the churches job!”

Maybe so, but the church is a body of believers and with that comes a call to love the lost. Our conversations can be like this tale from Ezekiel. It starts out at one point but eventually ends with the Good News.