THE CHRISTMAS GIFT

 

Well over two thousand years ago, a baby was born in a tiny stable in the city of Bethlehem. We have come to think upon that birth as the Nativity. The story of the Nativity was and still remains a simple story. For it is the story of love, grace, compassion, mercy, forgiveness and restoration all wrapped up in a swaddling blanket; God’s gift to the world. A world that needed the very essences of what lay in that manger. The Nativity was not the beginning of God’s gift, the beginning was the very moment that God made a promise to His people that He would provide and make a way, even when they could not see a way to escape or overcome their circumstances of being burdened with trying to appease a Holy God by being Holy themselves. For they would struggle many years and bear many rules and regulations in trying to make emends for their wrongdoing through animal sacrifices to atone for their sin.

 

Yet, there in the manger, lay God’s answer to His promise that one day His children would not have to offer sacrifice or payment any longer for their sin. The birth of Jesus was not the payment for sin, but the opportunity to one day receive the free gift that His death would provide the world, should they respond to His offer. For it was not the baby Jesus that sacrificed Himself for us, but the fully grown man. While His birth provided the world with the opportunity, His death on the cross purchased us the right to become children of God. But there is still more to the story of what the life of Christ affords us than simply His birth, and His death. There is a middle part as well. The part about His growing up in a world of sin yet he lived His life, overcoming His surroundings and circumstances that came daily across His path. He lived in a world of sin yet, He overcame the world to show those that would one day be His that they too could overcome. The middle part of His life is the part that teaches us about the abundant life, which many will never know because they refuse to seek it. Instead they will give in and succumb to life’s trials and circumstances.

While He lived a life that set the example for us, it was another part about Jesus that is equally as important as any other and that was His resurrection and because of that, man now has the power that Jesus had to walk according to what God calls them to do and will one day stand without excuse as to what they did with the power offered them through the risen Savior.  That very word rose means grand things to us. It means that we can rise up as He did! Not only from our physical graves, but from our daily spiritual graves that we are faced with every morning as we rise to meet a new day. The most precious gift that you will ever have offered to you is a breath away, to receive it though, you must accept it! For no gift is really yours until it is received.  The gift is the gift of eternal life. Many people celebrate Christmas in their own way. However, for those that have been redeemed and know the power that lives within them, Jesus alone is the reason for their season.

Loving on you today!
Bren