I have thought long and hard about what to say for Christmas. I thought that I should comment on the Christmas Story, or maybe a truth that not everyone sees. I thought that maybe I should write about something in a plea to you in order that you may find salvation in Christ. I did not choose to do any of that. What I have chosen, is to thank you all for being my friends!
About two years ago God reached down from His holy throne and convicted me of all the sin in my life. He told me that He was tired of my riding the fence of being saved and yet still sinning. So I changed my life and I started with a vow to be a man of integrity, where what I say and what I do are in perfect alignment.
Many of you did not speak to me or were not in contact with me back then. I was not a nice person. Some of you can be witnesses to that very fact of the wretch that I was. But every single one of you gave me a second chance. Every single one of you said that you would be my friend again.
So I thank you today, during this Christmas Season, for being my friend! I love each and every one of you and hope that I can somehow fulfill the hope that you see in me when you look at me and speak good words of me.
Merry Christmas Everyone!
You are so correct Jay, and yet many who profess Christianity as their life style (note I did not say FAITH in JESUS) attend church and sit right on that fence all the days of their lives. They sit in judgment on other people and never realize that they are as lost themselves. What a powerful example for your friends and yet, a humbling example because you know there will be people watching for failure. The message of Christmas is that in the midst of humanity's failures, despair and wretchedness, God Most High, reached down in mercy and sent his one and only, begotten not created, Son who came into the world as the light and who came to bring life to the hopeless. He came with the announcement that the Kingdom of Heaven had come near to humanity, that the Kingdom of God was and is accessible and that God himself desired to draw all men to him.
ReplyDeleteThe world was in darkness, the enemy had laid siege to the hearts of men and women. Yet the King of Glory, the Mighty Prince, the Wonderful Counselor and Immanuel came, not as a conquering army, or a Royal Presence, he did not visibly break the blockade, rather he slipped in during the cover of a winter night, through a faithful young girl and her betrothed he was "born" in a lowly manger in a smelly animal shelter. Yet that fragile little child, was God who had personally come to rescue his beloved creation, humankind, from the grip of satan. He started a movement into the hearts and lives of all who would listen and heed his voice, and those to whom the spirit has given ears to hear are forever changed.
Well said Nathan and thank you! =)
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