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Key Bible Verse: "Why did you need to search? … You should have known that I would be in my Father's house" (Luke 2:49). Bonus Reading: Luke 2:41-52

I used to think that was what the account of the boy Jesus being left behind in Jerusalem was about. Then I realized Jesus always knew where he was, what he was doing, and why he was there. It was Mary who'd lost her bearings. The mystery of Jesus' true identity had faded with the years as his baby teeth fell out and his voice began to change. She revealed this by her exasperated words to Jesus: "Son! Why have you done this to us? Your father and I have been frantic, searching for you everywhere!" She meant, of course, that she and Joseph had been hunting for him. But Jesus' real Father hadn't been looking for him at all. Mary should have remembered her encounter with the angel and the miraculous, Spirit-induced conception of her boy. But she'd started to think of Joseph as her son's dad.

Jesus stayed behind in Jerusalem on purpose to remind her. In his reply, [today's Key Bible Verse], he could have said, "You should have known that I'd be in the temple" or "back here in Jerusalem." But his word choice was deliberate; he said "in my Father's house." If Mary had remembered his true identity, she'd have known immediately where to look for him.

—Steven James in Sailing Between the Stars

My Response: I'll ask God to help me better grasp his only Son's true identity.

Thought to Apply: The virgin birth is far less mind-boggling than the Power of all Creation stooping so low as to become one of us. —Madeleine L'Engle (author)

Adapted from Sailing Between the Stars (Revell, 2006) by permission.

Copyright © 2008 by the author or Christianity Today International/Men of Integrity magazine.
Click here for reprint information on Men of Integrity.

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Prayer for the Week

This Christmas, God, let me see behind a Jesus sanitized and neutered over the years to your actual battle-scarred, dragon-slaying Son.

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