GOD SAYS WE ARE ALL BORN BLIND, STUMBLING THROUGH LIFE IN THE DARK, AND HEADING TOWARDS PERSONAL, ENDLESS DOOM.
Christmas & Easter are the story of the Lord God Almighty, motivated by His great love, sending Jesus to provide the way of salvation to lost humanity sitting in that complete darkness.
Jesus came to Earth as the sunrise [Dayspring] from God, to shine the light of salvation upon all of the lost and sin-darkened people of this world.
The Roman world of the 1st Century had reached the highest levels of science, literature, culture, engineering, transportation, and medicine known since Adam and Eve stepped from the Garden.
Yet with all that advancement most people were still hopelessly lost and endlessly troubled by an inability to even control their own fears and desires—let alone know how to come to know the Awesome God of the Universe.
God surveyed His creation and found that the crown of creation, the only creatures made in His image had a soul threatening, a terminal illness called sin. In every instance of Christ’s coming (Christmas) there are clues describing what we needed as exactly what Jesus came to offer us.
This Christmas, we need to see ourselves as God saw us.
GOD’S GIFT IS ONLY FOR THE LOST & DYING
Christmas from the Divine vantage point as explained in the Bible should make us see Christ’s death is only for the guilty, only for the hopelessly stained, and only for the helplessly lost. It is in that condition—that we find God’s grace.
Perhaps the most well-known verse in the Bible is also the clearest expression of the heart of Christmas.
John 3:16 “For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have everlasting life.
God so loved our world: lost, blinded by sin, stumbling towards the chasm in darkness—that He gave His only Son, the Light of the World, to be a Savior for sinners.
All we have to do is unwrap and experience all that He has given to us.
BEWARE OF UNOPENED PRESENTS
As a father of many Christmases when the family is all sitting around and gifts are being opened, I have looked into the eyes of a small child standing before me saying: did you open my present to you? Often those tiniest, handmade gifts were somehow misplaced, overlooked, and the giver was still waiting. What joy it was to see their faces when at last the gift was found, opened, and shared..
All of us who are saved, born again, and believers in Jesus Christ this morning have received a gift—the greatest gift. But the question we need to answer this morning is, have you opened that gift. Salvation has many wonderful elements—each like a special present. Are you opening your presents?
Salvation is a package of never-ending gifts of joy and delight each day.
These gifts are opened by faith one by one as we see who we have become in Christ. So the Christ of Christmas is the start of a lifetime of priceless gifts, given to us freely by God above. As you think about Christmas, gifts, presents, giving and receiving—why not check and be sure that you are opening the only gift that you (and everyone else) really needs? It starts as we:
OPEN THE GIFT OF FORGIVENESS
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