Christmas A Time to Celibrate
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Christmas is a time to celebrate the entrance of God’s son into this world. The Bible contains the original Christmas Story (Luke 2:8-14)
Now there were in the same country shepherds living out in the fields, keeping watch over their flock by night. And behold, an angel of the Lord stood before them, and the glory of the Lord shone around them, and they were greatly afraid. Then the angel said to them, “Do not be afraid, for behold, I bring you good tidings of great joy which will be to all people. For there is born to you this day in the city of David a Savior, who is Christ the Lord. And this will be the sign to you: You will find a Babe wrapped in swaddling cloths, lying in a manger.” And suddenly there was with the angel a multitude of the heavenly host praising God and saying: “Glory to God in the highest, And on earth peace, goodwill toward men!”
In this telling of the Christmas account by luke we see the angel revealed to the shepherds Christmas’ threefold purpose as
a time of celebration
, a time for reconciliation,
and a time for salvation.
Today we are going to focus on this first purpose: Christmas is a time for celebration! Christmas is an affirmation that
(1) God loves you, (2) God is with you, and (3) God is for you!
God Loves You In sending his Son on that first Christmas, God said in the most powerful way he could, “I love you” (John 3:16
For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have everlasting life.
. God loves you so much, he came to earth as a human being so that you could know him, come to trust him, and learn to love him back. Jesus is God with skin on.
But until Jesus came, our understanding of His love was limited.
If you really want someone to know that you love him, you don’t send a representative. You say it personally. That is what God did at Christmas. The Bible says that God is love.
It doesn’t say that he has love, it says that he is love. God is the embodiment of love, and in sending Jesus, God came to live among us. In fact, there is nothing you could ever do that would cause God to stop loving you, because God’s love for you is based on his character, not your conduct! God’s love for you is based on who He is, not on what you have done. This is not to justify ones sin but to acknowledge that the Love of God the redemption of God the goodness of God His mercy His grace is not dependent on you but in Himself and How good He is
God is with You Jesus came to earth on that first Christmas to show us in a very real and practical way that God is with us (Isaiah 7:14
Therefore the Lord Himself will give you a sign: Behold, the virgin shall conceive and bear a Son, and shall call His name Immanuel.
Despite what you may feel, God is not distant. You are never alone. He is close to the broken hearten He is close to the humble He is close to those who draw close to Him He will never leave nor forsake you, if you feel him at a distance it is not that he doesn't love you it may because in response to your sin your hardening of your heart you have intentionally or maybe unintentionally stepped away from him, The question is never where is God the question is never he must not love me the question is How have i gotten so far from god that I can no longer feel his presence,
Like a good loving father In such times all we need to do is acknowledge our fall and need for christ repent and confess and the love of God will return it says so in 1 john 1:9
If we confess our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.
God in Christ is with you (Psalm 139:7-10
Where can I go from Your Spirit? Or where can I flee from Your presence? If I ascend into heaven, You are there; If I make my bed in hell, behold, You are there. If I take the wings of the morning, And dwell in the uttermost parts of the sea, Even there Your hand shall lead me, And Your right hand shall hold me.
If you have placed your trust in Jesus as your Savior, you can be assured of his love, his presence, and his help. Now, you may need to learn to tune into his presence. But he is there, and he will never abandon you. God will never betray you. He will never leave you, no matter what you do, or how badly you mess up. When you are tired of running, tired of doing life your own way and ready to do it God’s way, He says, “Draw near to God and He will draw near to you.”
God is for You! Many people don’t believe that. They think that God is out to get them. But the Bible clearly tells us that God is for us (Romans 8:31–32 “What then shall we say to these things? If God is for us, who is against us? He who did not spare His own Son, but delivered Him over for us all, how will He not also with Him freely give us all things?”
, Jeremiah 29:11
For I know the thoughts that I think toward you, says the Lord, thoughts of peace and not of evil, to give you a future and a hope.
Some people may fear that God is “out to get them” due to having a guilty conscience, or ignorance of what God is like. All of us struggle with sin on some level. And the more sensitive your conscience, the guiltier you are likely to feel. Many folks are afraid of God. They don’t understand that Jesus came to forgive them, not condemn them. We are all familiar with John 3:16, which assures us of God’s love: “For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son…” But we are not as aware of John 3:17, which assures us that God is for us! “For God did not send the Son into the world to judge the world, but that the world might be saved through Him.” Jesus came to save us, not to judge us.
He came to offer us forgiveness of sin and eternal life. When we sin, Jesus doesn’t rub it in, he rubs it out
! He forgives us and sovereignly works in our lives to change us from the inside out. He works to make us more like himself. Because of what Jesus has done for you on the cross, God is not mad at you anymore. His righteous anger against sin was satisfied through Jesus’ death on the cross (Romans 5:8–9 “But God demonstrates His own love toward us, in that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us. Much more then, having now been justified by His blood, we shall be saved from the wrath of God through Him.”
This Christmas, let’s not forget the reason for the season. Let’s put Jesus front and center. And let’s celebrate God’s love, presence, and enduring commitment to us.
CHALLENGE
CHALLENGE
Put Jesus at the center. Celebrate God’s love, presence, and enduring commitment to us. Let us focus and be as Christ was towards us let us give and not worry about reciving Just as Chrsit came all those years ago to Give us a new life on Him Let us Pray