Merry Christmas!
“She will bear a son, and you shall call his name Jesus, for he will save his people from their sins.””
(Matthew 1:21 ESV)
Those were the angels words to Joseph upon his discovery that his girlfriend was pregnant and he knew he wasn’t the father.
It would have required angelic visitation to calm me down too.
What an odd way for a thrice holy God to make His entrance into humanity.
Scandalously.
Messily.
I’m occasionally called by Trey’s mom to help him clean up his room.
This is usually when the carnage is such that it looks like power equipment will be needed to get in the bedroom door.
I can’t just instruct him how to clean up the mess.
Chastisement for the mess is appropriate, but will not clean up the mess.
I have to go and get in the middle of the mess with him.
Jesus came to save us from our sins and one day He will clean up all this mess.
He didn’t just send an instruction book, He came Himself.
He didn’t come to chastise, but to save.
He’s not afraid of you scandals or your mess.
He came for sinners.
He came for me.
He came for you.
Most of you who read here know all of this already.
Some of you have forgotten that there is no limit on the number of messes He is willing to clean up.
Some of you are acting like He never came at all…
Give yourself a Christmas present this morning and call Him again.
He will enter in to your mess with you.
God with us.
God for us.
Today.
Make your own application…
Beautifully written. Good reminder of what the season is all about.
Merry Christmas to all.
No family and no friends. Just the still of the night, meditating upon the eve and what followed after. The crisp air brings a stark reality of what it might have been like for this family to find shelter to prepare for the birth of their child. Then having done so, come to the reality that He, this child was not their own, but was sent to the world to behold, to determine what they would do with Him and how they might receive Him into their own hearts.
Bless the Lord, oh my soul and all that is within me, bless His Holy Name.
Blessings to all——may none forget He is the reason for this season, and pretty much everything else that has any significance.
Merry, Merry, Christmas.
Christmas joy and peace to the Phoenix Preacher family. I appreciate you all so much.
Church is over so to me Christmas is over – now I will celebrate secular Christmas with the rest of the world – you know, the Santa and presents stuff along with too much food and too much drink. 🙂
This morning I read the birth narrative out of Rev 12:1-6
I just heard of a professor who is teaching (or rather this is what the student got from it) that the Holy Spirit does not live inside us. No, God is too holy to inhabit sinful space. So, the Spirit comes and goes, you know, to keep God safe from our sin. Of course I caricature but whatever made the student report such nonsense to me is dualistic crap and cannot come from someone who comprehends the incarnation or the Gospel.
Anyway Michael, I am glad the thrice Holy God shows up in my mess and continuously does the beautiful work.
I am not as bad as I was but I cannot claim to be better either. So grace wins.
Merry Christmas
Merry Christmas. ?
One family’s gift this year.
http://wordcook.net/2015/12/21/walmart-is-a-holy-land/#comments
AA, I’m weeping after reading that link . Beautiful !!
michael and BD…Amen…as I contemplate Jesus in this season, I think about women who work full time. Praise the Lord He has enough for women who are weary …