God With Us (2)

Can you imagine a world without Christmas?

No parties, cookies, carols, trees, stockings, presents

World without Christmas? No Jesus. No God with us.

God made world filled w/people, frogs, trees, flowers, sunshine, mountains, lakes

God is life & love, made world to LIVE abundantly & beauty, LOVE others w/ its abundance & beauty.

Lakes & mountains: rest & recreation

Sun: light & energy

Flowers & trees: color & fruit

Frogs: ribbit?

People: God’s image, love world like He does.

This world was made for Christmas. God with us is heaven on earth, full of His gifts of life & love.

Pretty easy to imagine world without Christmas.

Not heaven on earth, life/love; eternal winter of death & sin.

Babies in NICU, parents on hospice, cancer & Covid, family squabbles & cold shoulders, addictions & abuse, character assassinations & funerals.

Instead of life, death surrounds us, stalks us, preys on us.

Instead of love, sins hurt & haunt, turn our hearts 3 sizes too small, make us all look like Grinch who stole Christmas.

Hard to imagine world with Christmas, God w/us.

World was made for Christmas; for Jesus, for God with us.

Not just for parties, cookies, carols, trees, stockings, presents

Christmas isn’t even just about a baby named Jesus in a manger.

It’s about what that baby came to do.

“Joseph, son of David, do not fear to take Mary as your wife, for that which is conceived in her is from the Holy Spirit. She will bear a son, and you shall call his name Jesus, for he will save his people from their sins. All this took place to fulfill what the Lord had spoken by the prophet: ‘Behold, the virgin shall conceive and bear a son, and they shall call his name Immanuel’ (which means, God with us).” (Matthew 1:20-23)

Christmas is proof world is meant for God WITH us!

Jesus is conceived by Spirit & born of Mary; a child the world has never seen!

Son of Earth & a Son of Heaven! Reunited in a manger!

God becomes man, heaven forever tethered to earth!

Jesus: life & love incarnate for world!

God can’t imagine a world without Christmas.

Doesn’t leave you surrounded by death or as a sinful Grinch.

Not God against us; God with us, “for he will save his people from their sins.”

Love Incarnate takes all your sin on cross, gives you His beauty & righteousness.

Life Incarnate explodes tomb w/life & obliterates death.

Heaven & Earth Incarnate born from stable/tomb to make world His home forever!

“In this the love of God was made manifest among us, that God sent his only Son into the world, so that we might live through him.” (1 John 4:9)

This world was MADE for Christmas; for Jesus, for God with us.

You live in a Christmas world.

Heaven’s greatest gift is God who is w/you in NICU, hospice, cancer & Covid, family squabbles & cold shoulders, addictions & abuse; even at funeral.

Heaven’s Christmas present: even when you are surrounded by death, life abundant promised to you.

Heaven’s Christmas present: even when you have blood on your hands, love & forgiveness abundant is for you

“Behold, the dwelling place of God is with man. He will dwell with them, and they will be his people, and God himself will be with them as their God.” (Revelation 21:3)

Jesus is born Son of Heaven & Son of Earth, God with us. Manger is heaven on earth, reunited for you.

This world was made for Christmas; for Jesus, for God with us.