YAY CHRISTMAS!
Christmas lovers like me know that Christmas time is here! Christmas is every day for us.
I can hear the legalists now..”Stay in your lane; it’s not even Thanksgiving!” To which I reply, “Yada, yada, yada Debby Downer, Party Pooper, Buzz Killer!
It is difficult to believe, but there are only eight weeks and a couple of days left until the day we have chosen to celebrate the most significant event of all time, the entry of God into the earth that He created as a human being. From now until then, we will teach the long version of the “Christmas Story,” which was the most crucial news report in the history of our world.
Our wish is that your heart and spirit will be complete and overflowing with the joy and gladness that Jesus came to give us throughout the most beautiful time of the year, and that you will share your joy and the message of the Love of Jesus with others.
Some of you have had your hearts broken during the year by the loss of loved ones or other negative and traumatic occurrences. Our thoughts and prayers are with you. We would never minimize the pain and grief you are dealing with. Our hearts hurt for you.
It may help you to strive to live in this present moment, focusing when you can on the love that Jesus has for you personally and the certain knowledge of eternal life that He offers us as a free gift.
The knowledge that this life is a wisp of smoke and is done in the blinking of an eye, and in that blink of an eye, you will again celebrate joyfully with the ones who are with Jesus in His glory and that Jesus has overcome the mountains of tribulation in your life, may help you. Know that the Holy Spirit Jesus has given you is the Comforter, and He will never leave or forsake you.
(John 16:33)
From A Christmas Carol, by Charles Dickens, A Beautiful Description Of Christmas:
In the story’s opening, Scrooge calls humbug on his nephew Fred, who has come to wish him a merry Christmas. He tells Fred that Christmas is a time of wasting money and offers no financial gain. Scrooge decries the spending of money on gifts and nonessential things. He laments that Christmas is a time that puts no money in anyone’s pocket. Fred’s response is a classic description of how I also feel about Christmas.
“There are many things from which I might have derived good, by which I have not profited, I dare say, returned the nephew—Christmas among the rest. But I am sure I have always thought of Christmas time when it has come round—apart from the reverence due to its sacred name and origin if anything belonging to it can be apart from that—as a good time, a kind, forgiving, charitable, pleasant time; the only time I know of, in the long calendar of the year when men and women seem by one consent to open their shut-up hearts freely and to think of people below them as if they really were fellow-passengers to the grave and not another race of creatures bound on other journeys. And therefore, uncle, though it has never put a scrap of gold or silver in my pocket, I believe that it has done me good and will do me good, and I say, God bless it!”
“YES INDEED! GOD BLESS IT!”
Many have remorse over spending too much money at Christmas. Some to the point of hating Christmas. When the evil one throws that at me, I remind myself that God spent everything He had on gift-giving at Christmas. More importantly, we can give many meaningful gifts that cost little. or nothing. Time is one of these. We do not need to go into debt to demonstrate our love for one another.
May I suggest that this Christmas, you listen to and consider the lyrics of some of the classic Christmas carols, which are being lost and replaced by modern ballads about red shoes and such? These new blathering ballads are annoying at best and an overt attempt to dilute the true meaning of the Birth of Jesus—just my opinion.
Many of the classic Christmas carols teach the gospel of “GOOD NEWS OF GREAT JOY WHICH SHALL BE TO ALL PEOPLE” And “PEACE ON EARTH GOOD WILL TO MEN IN WHICH GOD IS WELL PLEASED,” better than most sermons.
Here is an example from the beautiful “Joy To The World“:
“He rules the world with Grace and Truth!“
(John 1:17)
And makes the nations prove
The glories of His righteousness
And wonders of His love
And wonders of His love
And wonders, and wonders of His love.”
Exactly!
Jesus rules the world with Grace and Truth, not laws and works, demonstrating the wonders of His love. His infinite, unconditional, eternal, incomprehensible love is the greatest gift ever. It is why He sacrificed Himself to save and bless us with everything pertaining to life and godliness. The wonders of His love is that while we were in our deepest, darkest sin, He proved His love by dying for us.
( 2 Peter 1:1-4, Romans 5:8)
This classic “Hark, The Herald!” Meaning: Listen intently to the messenger(Gabriel)and believe his message, is filled with power and Truth.
(Luke 2:8-14)
“Hark, the Herald angels sing
Glory to the newborn king
Peace on Earth, and mercy mild
God and sinners reconciled.”
Precisely! Jesus reconciled man with God. He paid the price necessary for us to be found not guilty and in right standing with God and all that we need to do to receive and walk in that reconciliation is to believe and believe in Him. He forgave our sins past, present, and future and seated us with Himself in Heavenly places.
(John 6:28-29, Ephesians 2:6, Isaiah 53:4-5, Psalm 103:1-3 and 12, John 1:29, 1Peter 2:24, Hebrews 8,12, Hebrews 10:10-18, Revelation 1:4)
The next stanza should include the word “Therefore.”
“Joyful all ye nations rise
Join the triumph of the skies
With Angelic host proclaim.”
This, of course, refers to the sudden appearance of a multitude of the heavenly hosts, who sang and praised God and shouted: “Glory to God in Heaven, and on earth peace among those with whom He is well pleased.”
“Jesus is born in Bethlehem
Hark, the herald, Angels sing
“Glory to the newborn king”
Jesus, by the highest Heaven, adored…
Jesus, the everlasting Lord
Late in time, behold Him come
Offspring of the favored one
Veiled in flesh, the Godhead seen
Hail the incarnate deity
Pleased, as a man with men to dwell
Jesus, our Emmanuel.”
A prophecy through Isaiah to us:
“Therefore, the Lord Himself will give you a sign. Behold the virgin shall conceive and bear a son, and shall call His name Emmanuel.”
(Isaiah 7:14)
“For to us a child is born, to us a Son is given; and the government (spiritual) shall be upon His shoulder, and His name shall be called Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of peace.”
(Isaiah 9:6)
Emmanuel…God with us. Jesus is God with us. Jesus is the God that dwells inside of us. He is always with us and will not leave us or forsake us.
(Matthew 28:20)
Jesus is eternal. ‘The Godhead seen’ means that Jesus is God in all three persons: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.
(John 1:1, John 14:7)
“Pleased as a man with men to live” means that it was God’s plan of salvation to become a human and walk the earth for thirty-three years, feeling what it is like to be tempted without yielding to sin and to deal with all of the issues of humanity, then teaching us what He wants from us.
The testimony of John the eyewitness:
“And the Word (Jesus) became flesh and lived among us.” (John 1:14)
Hark, the Herald angels sing
Glory to the newborn king
Hail the Heaven-born Prince of peace
Hail the son of righteousness
Light and life to all He brings
Risen with healing in his wings
Yes, Jesus brought light and life to us. From John again:
“In Him was life, and the life was the light of men. The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it.” (John 1:4)
And Yes, Jesus is the Prince of Peace who has given us His peace!
(John14:27)
Jesus teaching us His identity:
“I Am the Way and the Truth and the Life. No one comes to the Father but by Me. If you had known Me, you would have known my Father also. From now on, you know Him and have seen Him.” (John 14:6-7)
“Risen with healing in His wings” is a factual statement that Jesus healed all our diseases, disorders, sicknesses, illnesses, and calamities and carried them away. If only we believed this Truth.
(Psalm 103:1-3, Isaiah 53:4-5, Matthew 8:16-17)
Born to realize his pouring life
Born that man no more may die
Born to raise the sons of Earth
Born to give them second birth
Hark, the Herald angels sing
Glory to the newborn king!“
When the officers from the chief priests and the Pharisees came to arrest Jesus, Peter pulled his sword and lopped off the right ear of the high priest’s servant.
“So Jesus said to Peter, ‘Put your sword into its sheath; shall I not drink the cup the Father gave me’?
(John 18:11)
Jesus knew and lived God’s plan of salvation. He knew that He was to sacrifice His earth suit. He executed the plan by fulfilling the Law and dying on the cross.
Here is how Paul, our appointed teacher, explained the program of salvation completed by the King of Kings and Lord of Lords:
“Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus, who has blessed us in Jesus with every spiritual blessing in heavenly places, even as He chose us in Him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy, blameless, and beyond correction before Him.
In love, He predestined us for adoption as sons through Jesus according to the purpose of His will and the praise of His glorious grace, with which He blessed us in the Beloved (Jesus).
In Him we have redemption THROUGH HIS BLOOD, the forgiveness of our sins, according to the riches of His Grace (His willingness, ability, and power that have done those things for us that we can not or will not do for ourselves, such as salvation.), which He lavished on us, in all wisdom and insight (in today’s vernacular, INTENTIONALLY) making known to us the mystery of His will, according to His purpose, which He set forth in Jesus as a plan for the fullness of time, to unite all things in Him, things in Heaven and on earth.”
(Ephesians 1:3-10)
I deeply appreciate the last stanza of “The First Noel.”
It neatly summarizes the Gospel of Jesus:
“Then let us all with one accord
sing praises to our heavenly Lord,
that hath made Heaven and earth of nothing
and with his blood, our life has bought.“
As you sing and listen to the season’s carols this Christmas, hear their more profound meaning and meditate on them.
END OF TEACHING
