The announcement in Luke 2:11 is not a vague, feel-good slogan; it is a precise declaration. On a real day, in a specific town, a Child was born who bears three striking titles: Savior, Christ, and Lord. That sentence captures history, prophecy, and eternity colliding in a manger. Today, as we celebrate Christmas, that same announcement still echoes over our lives, asking not just if we will sing about it, but if we will surrender to the One it proclaims.

A Savior for This Very Day

“Today in the City of David…” God loves the word “today.” He did not send His Son to float above real life, but to step right into our calendar, our darkness, our need. The angels’ message is not only about a long-ago night; it is God’s declaration that in this very moment, salvation is available. Scripture says, “Behold, now is the time of favor; now is the day of salvation!” (2 Corinthians 6:2). Christmas means God has broken into time, so that no one has to stay trapped in yesterday’s sin or tomorrow’s empty promises.

The “City of David” points us back to God’s faithfulness. Centuries earlier, He promised that from Bethlehem would come a ruler “whose origins are from of old, from the days of eternity” (Micah 5:2). Isaiah foretold, “For unto us a child is born, unto us a son is given… and He will be called Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace” (Isaiah 9:6). On that night, every word was kept. When you feel like your story is off track, remember: the same God who steered history to a manger in Bethlehem has not lost control of your life today.

Born to You: Making Christmas Personal

The angel’s words are strikingly personal: “a Savior has been born to you.” Not simply “to the world,” not merely “to Israel,” but to you. That means the birth of Jesus is not just a doctrine to agree with; it is a gift to receive. Scripture tells us, “But when the fullness of time had come, God sent His Son, born of a woman, born under the law, to redeem those under the law, that we might receive adoption as sons” (Galatians 4:4–5). You and I were not just a little broken—we were in need of redemption. Christmas is God stepping into our helplessness with a Rescuer who comes all the way down.

This Savior did not remain a baby in a crib; He grew up to hang on a cross. “God made Him who knew no sin to be sin for us, so that in Him we might become the righteousness of God” (2 Corinthians 5:21). The manger leads to Calvary. The swaddling cloths anticipate the burial linen. To say “this Child is born to me” is to admit, “I need forgiveness only He can give.” John writes, “Yet to all who received Him, to those who believed in His name, He gave the right to become children of God” (John 1:12). Have you merely admired the story, or have you received the Savior as your own?

Christ the Lord: Bowing Our Hearts

Luke records, “Today in the City of David a Savior has been born to you. He is Christ the Lord!” (Luke 2:11). “Christ” is not Jesus’ last name; it is His royal title—the Anointed One, the promised King. “Lord” declares His absolute authority and divine status. The baby in the manger is the eternal Word who “became flesh and made His dwelling among us” (John 1:14). It is impossible to honor Christmas rightly while trying to keep Jesus as a sentimental ornament rather than the sovereign Lord over every corner of our lives.

Because He humbled Himself to the point of death on a cross, “God exalted Him to the highest place… that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow… and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord” (Philippians 2:9–11). One day, every knee will bow—willingly or unwillingly. Christmas is an invitation to bow now in glad surrender: to confess with your mouth, “Jesus is Lord,” and believe in your heart that God raised Him from the dead, that you may be saved (Romans 10:9). Today, let the way you speak, forgive, spend, plan, and celebrate say clearly: “Christ is my Lord.”

Lord Jesus, thank You for coming as my Savior, Christ, and Lord; today, move my heart to trust You fully, obey You gladly, and point others to You in all I do.

In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.

John 1:1

An intelligent plain man, untaught in the truths of Christianity, coming upon this text, would likely conclude that John meant to teach that it is the nature of God to speak, to communicate His thoughts to others. And he would be right. A word is a medium by which thoughts are expressed, and the application of the term to the Eternal Son leads us to believe that self-expression is inherent in the Godhead, that God is forever seeking to speak Himself out to His creation. The whole Bible supports the idea. God is speaking. Not God spoke, but God is speaking. He is by His nature continuously articulate. He fills the world with His speaking Voice.

One of the great realities with which we have to deal is the Voice of God in His world. The briefest and only satisfying cosmogony is this: `He spake and it was done.' The why of natural law is the living Voice of God immanent in His creation. And this word of God which brought all worlds into being cannot be understood to mean the Bible, for it is not a written or printed word at all, but the expression of the will of God spoken into the structure of all things. This word of God is the breath of God filling the world with living potentiality. The Voice of God is the most powerful force in nature, indeed the only force in nature, for all energy is here only because the power-filled Word is being spoken.

The Bible is the written word of God, and because it is written it is confined and limited by the necessities of ink and paper and leather. The Voice of God, however, is alive and free as the sovereign God is free. `The words that I speak unto you, they are spirit, and they are life.' The life is in the speaking words. God's word in the Bible can have power only because it corresponds to God's word in the universe. It is the present Voice which makes the written Word all- powerful. Otherwise it would lie locked in slumber within the covers of a book.

We take a low and primitive view of things when we conceive of God at the creation coming into physical contact with things, shaping and fitting and building like a carpenter. The Bible teaches otherwise: `By the word of the Lord were the heavens made; and all the host of them by the breath of his mouth. ...For he spake, and it was done; he commanded, and it stood fast.' (Psalm 33:6,9) `Through faith we understand that the worlds were framed by the word of God.' (Hebrews 11:3) Again we must remember that God is referring ere not to His written Word, but to His speaking Voice. His world-filling Voice is meant, that Voice which antedates the Bible by uncounted centuries, that Voice which has not been silent since the dawn of creation, but is sounding still throughout the full far reaches of the universe.

The Word of God is quick and powerful. In the beginning He spoke to nothing, and it became something. Chaos heard it and became order, darkness heard it and became light. `And God said - - and it was so.' (Genesis 1:9) These twin phrases, as cause and effect, occur throughout the Genesis story of the creation. The said accounts for the so. The so is the said put into the continuous present. That God is here and that He is speaking--these truths are back of all other Bible truths; without them there could be no revelation at all. God did not write a book and send it by messenger to be read at a distance by unaided minds. He spoke a Book and lives in His spoken words, constantly speaking His words and causing the power of them to persist across the years. God breathed on clay and it became a man; He breathes on men and they become clay. `Return ye children of men,' (Psalm 90:3) was the word spoken at the Fall by which God decreed the death of every man, and no added word has He needed to speak. The sad procession of mankind across the face of the earth from birth to the grave is proof that His original Word was enough.

We have not given sufficient attention to that deep utterance in the Book of John, `That was the true Light, which lighteth every man that cometh into the world.' (John 1:9) Shift the punctuation around as we will and the truth is still there: the Word of God affects the hearts of all men as light in the soul. In the hearts of all men the light shines, the Word sounds, and there is no escaping them. Something like this would of necessity be so if God is alive and in His world. And John says that it is so. Even those persons who have never heard of the Bible have still been preached to with sufficient clarity to remove every excuse from their hearts forever. `Which show the work of the law written in their hearts, their conscience also bearing witness, and their thoughts the mean while either accusing or else excusing one another.' (Romans 2:15) `For the invisible things of him from the creation of the world are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made, even his eternal power and Godhead; so that they are without excuse.' (Romans 1:20)

This universal Voice of God was by the ancient Hebrews often called Wisdom, and was said to be everywhere sounding and searching throughout the earth, seeking some response from the sons of men. The eighth chapter of the Book of Proverbs begins, `Doth not wisdom cry? and understanding put forth her voice?' The writer then pictures wisdom as a beautiful woman standing `in the top of the high places, by the way in the places of the paths.' She sounds her voice from every quarter so that no one may miss hearing it. `Unto you, O men, I call; and my voice is to the sons of men.' Then she pleads for the simple and the foolish to give ear to her words. It is spiritual response for which this Wisdom of God is pleading, a response which she has always sought and is but rarely able to secure. The tragedy is that our eternal welfare depends upon our hearing, and we have trained our ears not to hear.

This universal Voice has ever sounded, and it has often troubled men even when they did not understand the source of their fears. Could it be that this Voice distilling like a living mist upon the hearts of men has been the undiscovered cause of the troubled conscience and the longing for immortality confessed by millions since the dawn of recorded history? We need not fear to face up to this. The speaking Voice is a fact. How men have reacted to it is for any observer to note.

When God spoke out of heaven to our Lord, self-centered men who heard it explained it by natural causes: they said, `It thundered.' This habit of explaining the Voice by appeals to natural law is at the very root of modern science. In the living breathing cosmos there is a mysterious Something, too wonderful, too awful [i.e. `awesome'] for any mind to understand. The believing man does not claim to understand. He falls to his knees and whispers, `God.' The man of earth kneels also, but not to worship. He kneels to examine, to search, to find the cause and the how of things. Just now we happen to be living in a secular age. Our thought habits are those of the scientist, not those of the worshipper. We are more likely to explain than to adore. `It thundered,' we exclaim, and go our earthly way. But still the Voice sounds and searches. The order and life of the world depend upon that Voice, but men are mostly too busy or too stubborn to give attention.

Everyone of us has had experiences which we have not been able to explain: a sudden sense of loneliness, or a feeling of wonder or awe in the face of the universal vastness. Or we have had a fleeting visitation of light like an illumination from some other sun, giving us in a quick flash an assurance that we are from another world, that our origins are divine. What we saw there, or felt, or heard, may have been contrary to all that we had been taught in the schools and at wide variance with all our former beliefs and opinions. We were forced to suspend our acquired doubts while, for a moment, the clouds were rolled back and we saw and heard for ourselves. Explain such things as we will, I think we have not been fair to the facts until we allow at least the possibility that such experiences may arise from the Presence of God in the world and His persistent effort to communicate with mankind. Let us not dismiss such an hypothesis too flippantly.

It is my own belief (and here I shall not feel bad if no one follows me) that every good and beautiful thing which man has produced in the world has been the result of his faulty and sin-blocked response to the creative Voice sounding over the earth. The moral philosophers who dreamed their high dreams of virtue, the religious thinkers who speculated about God and immortality, the poets and artists who created out of common stuff pure and lasting beauty: how can we explain them? It is not enough to say simply, `It was genius.' What then is genius? Could it be that a genius is a man haunted by the speaking Voice, laboring and striving like one possessed to achieve ends which he only vaguely understands? That the great man may have missed God in his labors, that he may even have spoken or written against God does not destroy the idea I am advancing. God's redemptive revelation in the Holy Scriptures is necessary to saving faith and peace with God. Faith in a risen Saviour is necessary if the vague stirrings toward immortality are to bring us to restful and satisfying communion with God. To me this is a plausible explanation of all that is best outside of Christ. But you can be a good Christian and not accept my thesis.

The Voice of God is a friendly Voice. No one need fear to listen to it unless he has already made up his mind to resist it. The blood of Jesus has covered not only the human race but all creation as well. `And having made peace through the blood of his cross, by him to reconcile all things unto himself; by him, I say, whether they be things in earth, or things in heaven.' (Colossians 1:20) We may safely preach a friendly Heaven. The heavens as well as the earth are filled with the good will of Him that dwelt in the bush (Exodus 3). The perfect blood of atonement secures this forever.

Whoever will listen will hear the speaking Heaven. This is definitely not the hour when men take kindly to an exhortation to listen, for listening is not today a part of popular religion. We are at the opposite end of the pole from there. Religion has accepted the monstrous heresy that noise, size, activity and bluster make a man dear to God. But we may take heart. To a people caught in the tempest of the last great conflict God says, `Be still, and know that I am God,' (Psalm 46:10) and still He says it, as if He means to tell us that our strength and safety lie not in noise but in silence.

It is important that we get still to wait on God. And it is best that we get alone, preferably with our Bible outspread before us. Then if we will we may draw near to God and begin to hear Him speak to us in our hearts. I think for the average person the progression will be something like this: First a sound as of a Presence walking in the garden. Then a voice, more intelligible, but still far from clear. Then the happy moment when the Spirit begins to illuminate the Scriptures, and that which had been only a sound, or at best a voice, now becomes an intelligible word, warm and intimate and clear as the word of a dear friend. Then will come life and light, and best of all, ability to see and rest in and embrace Jesus Christ as Saviour and Lord and All.

The Bible will never be a living Book to us until we are convinced that God is articulate in His universe. To jump from a dead, impersonal world to a dogmatic Bible is too much for most people. They may admit that they should accept the Bible as the Word of God, and they may try to think of it as such, but they find it impossible to believe that the words there on the page are actually for them. Aman may say, `These words are addressed to me,' and yet in his heart not feel and know that they are. He is the victim of a divided psychology. He tries to think of God as mute everywhere else and vocal only in a book.

I believe that much of our religious unbelief is due to a wrong conception of and a wrong feeling for the Scriptures of Truth. A silent God suddenly began to speak in a book and when the book was finished lapsed back into silence again forever. Now we read the book as the record of what God said when He was for a brief time in a speaking mood. With notions like that in our heads how can we believe? The facts are that God is not silent, has never been silent. It is the nature of God to speak. The second Person of the Holy Trinity is called the word. The Bible is the inevitable outcome of God's continuous speech. It is the infallible declaration of His mind for us put into our familiar human words.

I think a new world will arise out of the religious mists when we approach our Bible with the idea that it is not only a book which was once spoken, but a book which is now speaking. The prophets habitually said, `Thus saith the Lord.' They meant their hearers to understand that God's speaking is in the continuous present. We may use the past tense properly to indicate that at a certain time a certain word of God was spoken, but a word of God once spoken continues to be spoken, as a child once born continues to be alive, or a world once created continues to exist. And those are but imperfect illustrations, for children die and worlds burn out, but the Word of our God endureth forever.

If you would follow on to know the Lord, come at once to the open Bible expecting it to speak to you. Do not come with the notion that it is a thing which you may push around at your convenience. It is more than a thing, it is a voice, a word, the very Word of the living God. Lord, teach me to listen. The times are noisy and my ears are weary with the thousand raucous sounds which continuously assault them. Give me the spirit of the boy Samuel when he said to Thee, `Speak, for thy servant heareth.' Let me hear Thee speaking in my heart. Let me get used to the sound of Thy Voice, that its tones may be familiar when the sounds of earth die away and the only sound will be the music of Thy speaking Voice. Amen.

Tozer in the Evening
THOUGHTS ON COMMUNION

What a sweet comfort to us that our Lord Jesus Christ was once known in the breaking of the bread. In earlier Christian times, believers called the Communion the medicine of immortality, and God gave them the desire to pray: Be known to us in breaking bread, But do not then depart; Savior, abide with us and spread Thy table in our heart. Some churches have a teaching that you will find God only at their table-and that you leave God there when you leave. I am so glad that God has given us light. We may take the Presence of the table with us. We may take the Bread of life with us as we go. Then sup with us in love divine, Thy body and Thy blood; That living bread and heavenly wine Be our immortal food! In approaching the table of our Lord, we dare not forget the cost to our elder Brother, the Man who was from heaven. He is our Savior; He is our Passover!

I lay down My life for the sheep. . . . have power to lay it down, and I have power to take it again. - John 10:15-18

We can imitate Christ in His service, but not in His sacrifice; we can tread in His footsteps to the gate of Gethsemane, but He has to wrestle in His agony alone; alone has to stand before His judges, and to die alone. He gives His life. As at its beginning He willed to be born, so at the end He wills to die. He is the Lord of Life and the Lord of Death; and never did He witness the completeness of His authority over that awful form, which yet is His servant, more marvelously and entirely than when He seemed to submit to its blow.

Like the King of Israel who bade his armor-bearer fall upon him and slay him, so Christ commanded and Death obeyed. If you will read with an eye to this thought the stories of the Crucifixion, you will see that all the evangelists, as of set purpose, choose expressions which are at least consistent with, and I think were selected on purpose to express, the thought of the voluntariness of our Lord’s death. " He yielded up the ghost," "He gave up the spirit," with a mighty cry which indicated unexhausted strength, " Father! into Thy hands I commend My Spirit!"

The same witness is borne, as I believe, by the remarkable language employed in the account of the Transfiguration, when these three, each of whom stood in a peculiar relation to death, Moses, Elias, and Christ, conversed in solemn words, "concerning the departure which He should accomplish at Jerusalem " - by Himself willing to go, and therefore going. You will not understand either birth or death unless you interpret them both according to His own profound saying: "I came forth from the Father, and am come into the world." Again, "I leave the world and go unto the Father."

And, still further, we have here set forth our Lord’s voluntary death as a ransom. A ransom is a price paid for the deliverance of a slave from captivity. And Christ distinctly, beyond all cavil on the part of honest interpretation, as it seems to me, sets forth His death here as the crown of His service and the climax of His work, because in it there is the power by which the bonds of sin and condemnation are broken, and liberty is proclaimed to the captive, and the opening of the prison to them that are bound. He dies, not as the hero dies who closes his heroism by a brave death. He dies, not as the martyr dies who seals his witness with his blood. He dies, not as the saint dies, leaving behind him sweet and pathetic memories that draw us onward upon a course like his own. Other men’s deaths are but the closing of their activity; Christ’s death is the climax of His. It is not enough that He should serve in our stead; He must die our death if we are to be set free. It is not enough that He should witness of God by the wisdom of His Word, the purity of His life, the graciousness of His deeds, the tenderness of His compassion, the pathos of His tears. A nobler revelation of the love of God triumphing over man’s sin; of the consistency of that life with perfect righteousness - a revelation, too, of the darkness and the foulness of man’s evil which nothing else could have given, is given to us when, and only when, we recognise the voluntary death of Jesus Christ as the ransom and propitiation for the sins of the world.