Christmas Time!
It is only a few more days before
Christmas. This is the time for the giving and receiving of gifts.
Who is the most important person on your Christmas gift list?
We celebrate the advent of the
Lord Jesus Christ at Christmas time, but do we really? Where are our
thoughts, and where is our mind and our heart focused, really, at
Christmas time? We ought to be celebrating the birth of our Lord and
Savior Jesus Christ, but I wonder if he is at the top of our
Christmas giving and receiving list, or at the middle, or at the
end, or is he really there at all?
As we gather around with our
family and friends to celebrate this most festive of occasions, the
first gift that ought to be received with gratitude and thanksgiving
is God's love gift to us, the Lord Jesus Christ. Open his gift
first. Give him gratitude and praise him first for his gift of love.
At Christmas time “God so loved
the world that he gave his only begotten son, that whosoever
believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life.”
John 3: 16. At Christmas time God offered us the opportunity to
become his adopted children by grace through faith. “As many as
received him to them gave he the power (or authority) to become the
sons (and daughters) of God.” At Christmas time he made it
possible for us as the children of God to become heirs of God, and
joint heirs with Jesus Christ. At Christmas time, God gave gifts
unto men. “Wherefore he saith, when he ascended up on high, he led
captivity captive and gave gifts unto men.” Ephesians 4: 8. At
Christmas time, God provided for our eternal salvation.
Salvation is a big package,
containing many things. It first of all contains forgiveness of sin,
freedom from guilt, justification with God. It includes peace and
joy and all the fruits of the spirit. It contains everlasting
eternal life. It guarantees an all expense paid trip to heaven and
the right to walk on streets of gold. It guarantees that there is a
mansion prepared and waiting for us in heaven. Jesus said: “I go
to prepare a place for you and if I go I will come again and receive
you unto myself that where I am there you may be also.” John 14:
2,3 The package of our salvation contains abundant life here on
earth, protection from danger, healing for mind soul and body, and a
guaranteed audience with theKing of kings and Lord of lords. It
contains all the provisions available to us in the 23rd
Psalm. It all happened at Christmas, and what a Christmas gift it
is! Thanks be to God for his unspeakable gift, the Lord Jesus Christ.
As we gather to receive and give gifts, lets first thank Christ that
while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us, the godly for the
ungodly, and the righteous for the unrighteous.
Lets covenant with ourselves and
with each other that we will not receive any gifts from anyone else
this Christmas time until we have received with gratitude in our
heart, the treasure that was given to us at Christmas time. No
matter how abject the poverty, or how small the bank account, nor how
few the gifts under the tree, no one has a right to say that they did
not receive anything for Christmas. God gave us everything he had at
Christmas Time. Lets covenant with ourselves that we will not offer
to anyone else our meager trinkets or gifts until we have rededicated
our lives to the Lord Jesus Christ and offered our selves again to
him in loving gratitude and service.
“I beseech you therefore
brethren, by the mercies of God, that ye present your bodies, a
living sacrifice, holy, acceptable unto God, which is your reasonable
service.”Romans 12:1. “Seek ye first the kingdom of God and his
righteousness.” Matthew 6: 33.
Every gift that we present to
someone else should not be with the attitude of seeing how much the
recipient of our gifts will be pleased with us for having given them
a gift. Instead, every gift that we present to someone else ought
to be a symbol of the gift that was offered to us by Christ's coming
into the world and shedding his blood for us. If opportunity presents
itself, we ought to first offer to every one on our giving list,
God's plan of salvation. Our first gift ought to be presented to
the Lord Jesus Christ in gratitude for his gift to us. We ought to
present to him our bodies as a living sacrifice which is our
reasonable service. We ought to present to him our complete love and
loyalty. The gift which is acceptable and pleasing to God is to love
the Lord with all our heart, with all our mind, and with all our
soul. We ought to keep our minds clean, and our thoughts pure, and
our bodies as the temple of God, spotless and clean that they may be
God's dwelling place, and headquarters on earth.
If the Lord Jesus Christ is not on
the top of our Christmas gift receiving and giving list, then we are
not celebrating the coming of the Lord into the world. Instead, we
will be celebrating a pagan festival of lustful covetousness and self
seeking for vain glory and the esteem of men.
How sad it is that in this so
called Christian country of ours, we are told that in order to be
“politically correct”, we must exclude the name and idea of
Christ from Christmas and celebrate a pagan holiday instead. This
is utter blasphemy. May God have mercy on our souls and on our
nation for this gross sin.
May each of you have a great God
blessed and Merry Christmas!
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