The Dark Side of Christmas, posted by Bob Bixby.
You may not have experienced divorce in your family, but certainly there are those around you who have. Many want to help, but few actually do. It is better for you to stumble over your words or actions, than to remain silent. As part of the body of Christ, we are to encourage one another, pray for one another, bear one another’s burdens, weep with one another, exhort, teach, comfort, and so on. This holiday season is a perfect time for you to reach out and help a family in need (Amy Johnson).
Disturbing Christmas, posted by C. J. Mahaney.
That’s the message of Christmas: God reconciled the world to himself through Christ, man’s sin has alienated him from God, and man’s reconciliation with God is possible only through faith in Christ …Christmas is disturbing (William H. Smith).
Come, Thou Long-Expected Jesus, posted by Carolyn McCulley.
But Christmas teaches that God is concerned not only with the spiritual, because he is not just a spirit anymore. He has a body. He knows what it's like to be poor, to be a refugee, to face persecution and hunger, to be beaten and stabbed. He knows what it is like to be dead. Therefore, when we put together the incarnation and the resurrection, we see that God is not just concerned about the spirit, but he also cares about the body (Tim Keller).
On Christmas Morning, posted by John Mark Reynolds.
We are unworthy. We should be content with some soup eaten in the servant’s quarters. Given previous behavior, we would not deserve the slightest favor from King Jesus.
Jesus loved us anyway. He came down on Christmas and took on our pain. He proclaimed us his siblings and we accepted the adoption. The Father is a good parent and treats His adopted children as His own.
Blessed us!
Children often don’t deserve their presents on Christmas Day. We don’t get the coal we deserve in our stockings this morning, but Paradise. It is no wonder we can hardly wait for Christmas.
Christmas: Faith, Hope and the Christ-Child, posted by Glenn Penner.
But those with faith are not without hope. Salvation did not come by means of a muscle-bound, Greek-style, wresting warrior-god. Our deliverer did not arrive in a majestic Roman chariot with legions on fine horses behind him. Satan was not defeated by physical or military might. God, in all his perfection and wisdom, secured our salvation and revealed his glory to the heavens and the earth through Jesus Christ: a baby in a manger in a stable; a Jewish carpenter in Roman-occupied Judea; a homeless, wandering preacher; a naked, battered and bloodied crucified man. It is no wonder that the gospel has been described as a 'great mystery'. And in these dark days, we should know that more often than not, God's ongoing work of sanctification is equally mysterious (Elizabeth Kendal).
“Nativity” by John Donne, posted by Jim Hamilton.
Immensity cloistered in thy dear womb,
Now leaves His well-belov’d imprisonment....
Christmas, God Working in the Dark, posted by Ray Van Neste.
Christmas is not the pretence that all is well now. Such pretence is a sham and people see through it as Scrooge did. No, Christmas is the blessed assurance that God is still at work redeeming His people. It is the reminder that God accomplishes salvation even when it looks bad. This gives us hope and points us forward to the coming day when God will make all things right.
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