One of the characters that surface around the birth of Jesus is Simeon.  This good man, having attained that which had long been his highest wish, the happiness of seeing God's Messiah, and having no further use for life, desired immediate death. Yet he would not depart of himself, knowing that man cannot lawfully desert his station until God, who placed him there, calls him home.  Three things we notice from Simeon's Godly reaction to Jesus:

   1. He recognized God's sovereignty in his life...that he was in the sovereignly right place at the right time to see the long promised Messiah.   The Holy Spirit had made known to him that he would see the Messiah before he would die.  (Luke 2:26)

   2.  He did not assume control of his life, but he left it in God's hands. He was trustful that he would “depart in peace according to God's word.”  (Luke 2:29)

   3. He recognized Jesus as the one who would bring salvation to not only Israel, but to the entire world.  (Luke 2:31-32)

I think the most impressive lesson we learn through Simeon is that God is in control of our lives bringing us to a recognition of the Savior.  Many Christians think that human will is what brings them to Jesus...it is not.  The significance of Christmas comes as a result of God sovereign design to introduce us to the Christ-child who came to secure our salvation from sin's penalty and providing us eternal life with God.  Christmas season is a joyous time because God made it so.  Christmas is a meaningfully joyous season because He introduced us to the Savior.

Today's My Utmost for His Highest provides not only the underpinning of Simeon's reaction to baby Jesus, but ours as well:

“Only the loyal soul believes that God engineers circumstances. Most of us tend to go about our lives thinking we're in control. Then, suddenly, God comes in and breaks up our circumstances, and we have the shocking realization that he was in control all along and that we've been disloyal to him by not recognizing it. We didn't see the special thing he was trying to create with our circumstances, and now the thing is gone, never to be repeated all the days of our life; the test of loyalty always comes in this way.

Loyalty to Jesus Christ is what we stumble over today. Many Christians are intensely impatient of talk about loyalty to Jesus. Our Lord (is dethroned more emphatically by Christians (at Christmas) than by the world.

The idea we should have isn't that we work for God but that we are so loyal to him that he can work through us. God wants to use us as he used his own Son.

For many, God is turned into a Santa-type machine for generating blessings, and Jesus as a Christmas story deserving our sympathy and pity.

For us as born again Christians, we celebrate Christmas not because it is a traditional, religious, celebratory cultural calendar time, but because we praise God for sovereignty working in each of our lives as He did with Simeon...to bring us face to face with our Savior and Lord.  We can say with Simeon:

“Now Lord, Thou dost let Thy band-servant depart in peace, according to Thy word, for my eyes have seen Thy salvation.”

For the unbeliever, faced with another Christmas, take into serious consideration the statement found in today's Utmost:  “We didn't see the special thing he was trying to create with our circumstances, and now the thing is gone, never to be repeated all the days of our life”

Walk with the King today and be a blessing.