NOTE: from our family to your family, we wish you a very Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year. This is the last devotion you will receive in 2006. Your next devotion will be delivered on January 2, 2007. Be blessed and keep your eyes and hearts on JESUS…He is the reason for the season.
The place of Christmas, the point of Christmas is clear to anyone who will stop and take a long look at history. I like the old saying that shares this: “History is truly His Story.”
It is all about God. It is all about God’s plan for humanity.
“God manifest in the flesh - that is what is made profoundly possible for you and me by the Redemption.” (Oswald Chambers in My Utmost For His Highest for Dec 25)
It was God’s plan and God’s choice to deal with our sin in a loving manner by giving us His best and his one and only Son. Jesus is God.
“Look! The virgin will conceive a child! She will give birth to a son, and he will be called Immanuel (meaning, God is with us).” Matthew 1:23 (NLT)
Not just God in the flesh but God for us. The Bible says in Romans 8 that nothing can separate us from God and His love. So, who came to the other? I mean, did we go to see God or did He come to be with us? It is all Him and all His choice. We are blessed just like Mary and Joseph. The message of Christmas is that we are chosen to be the children of God. Listen to what Mary heard:
“You will become pregnant and have a son, and you are to name him Jesus. He will be very great and will be called the Son of the Most High. And the Lord God will give him the throne of his ancestor David. And he will reign over Israel forever; his Kingdom will never end!” Luke 1:31-33 (NLT)
Not just great with child but great every way you can imagine. This was the plan of God that became the message from God that is and always will be the gift from God. The first Christmas gift is the gift of Jesus from the manger to the cross, from the cross to the grave and from the grave to eternity in Heaven…Jesus is the message of Christmas.
One of my favorite movies of the year is “The Ballard of Ricky Bobby”. While sitting at the dinner table with his family, Ricky Bobby talks about loving the baby Jesus but having a tough time with any other part of Jesus. The world is just that way. Christmas celebrates His birth, yet without His life and death the message of Christmas is empty. Literally, the first Christmas box would have been empty and useless.
But praise the Lord for His gift and the message of Christmas!
“For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, so that everyone who believes in him will not perish but have eternal life. God did not send his Son into the world to condemn it, but to save it.” John 3:16-17 (NLT)
The place of Christmas, the point of Christmas is clear to anyone who will stop and take a long look at history. I like the old saying that shares this: “History is truly His Story.”
It is all about God. It is all about God’s plan for humanity.
“God manifest in the flesh - that is what is made profoundly possible for you and me by the Redemption.” (Oswald Chambers in My Utmost For His Highest for Dec 25)
It was God’s plan and God’s choice to deal with our sin in a loving manner by giving us His best and his one and only Son. Jesus is God.
“Look! The virgin will conceive a child! She will give birth to a son, and he will be called Immanuel (meaning, God is with us).” Matthew 1:23 (NLT)
Not just God in the flesh but God for us. The Bible says in Romans 8 that nothing can separate us from God and His love. So, who came to the other? I mean, did we go to see God or did He come to be with us? It is all Him and all His choice. We are blessed just like Mary and Joseph. The message of Christmas is that we are chosen to be the children of God. Listen to what Mary heard:
“You will become pregnant and have a son, and you are to name him Jesus. He will be very great and will be called the Son of the Most High. And the Lord God will give him the throne of his ancestor David. And he will reign over Israel forever; his Kingdom will never end!” Luke 1:31-33 (NLT)
Not just great with child but great every way you can imagine. This was the plan of God that became the message from God that is and always will be the gift from God. The first Christmas gift is the gift of Jesus from the manger to the cross, from the cross to the grave and from the grave to eternity in Heaven…Jesus is the message of Christmas.
One of my favorite movies of the year is “The Ballard of Ricky Bobby”. While sitting at the dinner table with his family, Ricky Bobby talks about loving the baby Jesus but having a tough time with any other part of Jesus. The world is just that way. Christmas celebrates His birth, yet without His life and death the message of Christmas is empty. Literally, the first Christmas box would have been empty and useless.
But praise the Lord for His gift and the message of Christmas!
“For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, so that everyone who believes in him will not perish but have eternal life. God did not send his Son into the world to condemn it, but to save it.” John 3:16-17 (NLT)
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