ANGELS WE HAVE HEARD ON HIGH
Angels we have heard on high
Sweetly singing o’er the plains,
And the mountains in reply
Echoing their joyous strains.
Gloria in excelsis Deo,
Gloria in excelsis Deo.
Heavenly Father, we thank You for the season we are in. we are most gracious, we are grateful we are exciting as we await the arrival of Your dear son into our world. Thank You for this great love demonstrated for our sake so that we shall abide with You after our life on earth is spent (1Cor 15;30-34;51- 55).
We are most grateful and we bow before Your with the angles this morning to worship You also in fellowship with the twenty and four elders in heaven as we herald Your son in our various homes/heart. Glory, honour be unto you for ever and ever.
Dearly beloved, are you ready to go on your knees this moment to pray down this glory in the various communities we represent? Celebration of various kind is the air especially as we await the arrival of our “babe Jesus.”
At such a time like this, many are rejoicing while so many are mourning either for a loss of business, job, a dear one or have little or nothing for the great moment ahead. What is expected from those who have surplus to do at this time?
Beloved, as we prayerful prepare for season, let us ask God to lead us advancing “the reason for the season” to every home He will put in your heart to bless. Let us not only talk about Jesus, let us do the “deeds” of Jesus. Can someone tell us “what will Jesus do” at such a season as this?
Beloved, I want you to personal preach this season with “deeds of love” as you look forward to the coming year. Let us not allow those whom we will classify as being worldly to take over the scene. Do something in your community “preach the Word; do the Word.” Take men for Christ.
Our today’s topic is encouraging us not to grieve the Holy Spirit. We are having this topic again in a quick succession. Why? I don’t know but as you ready it you will discover more than I can explain here.
Beloved, as we prepare or celebrate this season let us apply this caution “grieve not the Holy Spirit.” In our actions and inactions. Let us be careful not to stop the activities of the Holy Spirit in our lives and homes.
Flee from all appearances of evil, let us celebrate this season in holy reverence of our Father and not in idolizing our traditional worship. Not in drunkenness, not in unholy acts and association but with love, giving and true worship to the One we celebrate.
Come as we discover more:
“Grieve not the Holy Spirit.” Ephesians 4:30
All that the believer has must come from Christ, but it comes solely through the channel of the Spirit of grace. Moreover, as all blessings thus flow to you through the Holy Spirit, so also no good thing can come out of you in holy thought, devout worship, or gracious act, apart from the sanctifying operation of the same Spirit.
Even if the good seed be sown in you, yet it lies dormant except He worketh in you to will and to do of His own good pleasure. Do you desire to speak for Jesus—how can you unless the Holy Ghost touch your tongue? Do you desire to pray? Alas! what dull work it is unless the Spirit maketh intercession for you! Do you desire to subdue sin? Would you be holy? Would you imitate your Master? Do you desire to rise to superlative heights of spirituality? Are you wanting to be made like the angels of God, full of zeal and ardour for the Master’s cause?
You cannot without the Spirit—”Without me ye can do nothing.” O branch of the vine, thou canst have no fruit without the sap! O child of God, thou hast no life within thee apart from the life which God gives thee through His Spirit! Then let us not grieve Him or provoke Him to anger by our sin. Let us not quench Him in one of His faintest motions in our soul; let us foster every suggestion, and be ready to obey every prompting.
If the Holy Spirit be indeed so mighty, let us attempt nothing without Him; let us begin no project, and carry on no enterprise, and conclude no transaction, without imploring His blessing. Let us do Him the due homage of feeling our entire weakness apart from Him, and then depending alone upon Him, having this for our prayer, “Open Thou my heart and my whole being to Thine incoming, and uphold me with Thy free Spirit when I shall have received that Spirit in my inward parts.”
Without the Holy Spirit, we can do nothing, therefore let us be abiding in Him, do all His biddings and we will be bless in return as we obey all He has commanded us to do. Let us learn to abide with Jesus both in fellowship and action we will read from the next message:
“Lazarus was one of them that sat at the table with Him.” John 12:2
He is to be envied. It was well to be Martha and serve, but better to be Lazarus and commune. There are times for each purpose, and each is comely in its season, but none of the trees of the garden yield such clusters as the vine of fellowship. To sit with Jesus, to hear His words, to mark His acts, and receive His smiles, was such a favour as must have made Lazarus as happy as the angels. When it has been our happy lot to feast with our Beloved in His banqueting-hall, we would not have given half a sigh for all the kingdoms of the world, if so much breath could have bought them.
He is to be imitated. It would have been a strange thing if Lazarus had not been at the table where Jesus was, for he had been dead, and Jesus had raised him. For the risen one to be absent when the Lord who gave him life was at his house, would have been ungrateful indeed. We too were once dead, yea, and like Lazarus stinking in the grave of sin; Jesus raised us, and by His life we live—can we be content to live at a distance from Him?
Do we omit to remember Him at His table, where He deigns to feast with His brethren? Oh, this is cruel! It behoves us to repent, and do as He has bidden us, for His least wish should be law to us. To have lived without constant intercourse with one of whom the Jews said, “Behold how He loved him,” would have been disgraceful to Lazarus, is it excusable in us whom Jesus has loved with an everlasting love? To have been cold to Him who wept over his lifeless corpse, would have argued great brutishness in Lazarus.
What does it argue in us over whom the Saviour has not only wept, but bled? Come, brethren, who read this portion, let us return unto our heavenly Bridegroom, and ask for His Spirit that we may be on terms of closer intimacy with Him, and henceforth sit at the table with Him.
Cease not pray as we are admonished (1 Thess 5:17; Lk 18:1). Do not be carried away by the euphoria of the season rather seek Jesus in prayer and enjoy full and wonderful moments with Him every now and then, so that the joy of the season will overtake you.
Like we advise earlier, prayerfully bless people around you especially those who are struggling to put smile on the face of their children and their aged parents and God will reward you in return as you make the MERRY-GO ROUND.
May all your prayers be attended to by the Holy Spirit of God as we celebrate this Yuletide. Let us complete the song we started in the beginning:
Shepherds, why this jubilee?
Why your joyous strains prolong?
What the gladsome tidings be
Which inspire your heavenly song?
Come to Bethlehem and see
Him whose birth the angels sing;
Come, adore on bended knee
Christ the Lord, the newborn King.
See Him in a manger laid,
Whom the choirs of angels praise;
Mary, Joseph, lend your aid,
While our hearts in love we raise.
Remain blessed in the Lord.
