Worldwide Christmas December 6, 2025 Devotional

LUKE 21:12, 16-18 | ¹² But before all this occurs, they will arrest you and persecute you; they will hand you over to synagogues and prisons, and you will be brought before kings and governors because of my name.

¹⁶ You will be betrayed even by parents and siblings, by relatives and friends, and they will put some of you to death. ¹⁷ You will be hated by all because of my name. ¹⁸ But not a hair of your head will perish.

Jesus wants His disciples to understand several important things in this chapter. As we have been stressing, we must live knowing that there will be a reckoning and Jesus will be judging. In our passage for today, He stresses that His disciples will be hassled and arrested, experience loss, and even death. He understood that they would be a resented minority within Judaism and a persecuted one within the Roman Empire. Under pressure, it would be tempting to forget that God is in charge of history.

The antidote to this is to remember that Jesus warned about these coming realities and that His dominion over history will be clear in the end. Now His rule is hidden, His tools are love and mercy, and He works in the recesses of the heart, but eventually His rule over history, time, and eternity will be made manifest. Between now and then, no final harm can come to those who belong to Him (not a hair of your head will perish). This perspective was vital for a persecuted Christian minority. It is vital too for us, whenever we live under the pressure of opposition or in the shadow of death.

Do you ever doubt that God is in charge of history?

Does Jesus’ realism about life under pressure alarm you or reassure you?

Gracious God,

Today we pray for all who are troubled and suffering in Your name. Bless their courageous witness.

Amen.