The blog will be temporarily suspended until Wednesday, December 26th, for the Christmas holiday. I know many of you are quite busy right now either preparing for Christmas at home or traveling to visit family, so I thought it best to begin our new Bible study the day after Christmas. Generally the blog doesn't get many visits right around Christmas because there is so much going on at that time.
While we're taking this short break I'm going to be studying materials and working on what we're going to be doing next which is studying the letter written by the Apostle James, the brother of the Lord. We will pick back up with the letters of the Apostle Paul afterwards, but just as we previously switched gears and looked at the letters of Peter out of order, we are going to switch gears a little bit and look at the words of James. This is the James who was the second eldest son in the household of Joseph and Mary, who didn't believe Jesus was the Christ until after the resurrection, who became a believer after meeting face to face with the resurrected Christ, who then became a leader in the Christian church, and who later lost his life for his faith.
I pray you all have a happy and healthy Christmas. I pray for anyone who has difficulty enjoying this season of the year because the circumstances in your lives or your family situations are not what you would like them to be. Some of my own circumstances right now are not what I'd like them to be, but over the past few days the Lord keeps reminding me that Christmas is not what popular culture says it is. Of course we'd all love being part of a big happy family and having a juicy turkey or ham on the table and plenty of money to buy gifts for our loved ones. But that's what our culture says Christmas is; it's not what the Lord says Christmas is. Of course we'd all enjoy having a picture-perfect Christmas just like in a Hallmark movie. But that's not everyone's reality and that's why we can sometimes feel very depressed and discouraged at this time of year.
The Lord never said Christmas was about sitting around a table loaded down with food or that Christmas meant a ton of presents under the tree or that Christmas was supposed to be a perfect coming together of our relatives. Christmas celebrates the day that the word of God became flesh and began to dwell among us. Christmas is about God loving us so much that He couldn't bear the thought of being without us, so He made a way for sinners like us to be reconciled to Him. Christmas is about the willingness of God the Son to be born in poverty, to live in a human body with all its weaknesses, to be ridiculed and rejected, to be laughed at and spit on, to be beaten and to suffer the tortures of the cross, to be dead and buried, and then to rise again so that we who deserve no redemption could have it anyway. Christmas is about love alright, but not the kind of love we see in the Hallmark movies. Christmas is about a sacrificial and unending love. Christmas is about being part of a family that will stick together forever, about being the sons and daughters of the living God and the brothers and sisters of Christ. So whether or not you are celebrating Christmas this year with an earthly family, you can still celebrate it with your heavenly family. Christ will sit at the table with you. If you've never invited Him into your life, He dearly wants you to, so why not make this Christmas season the year you give your heart and life to Him? You will never have to feel alone again.
No comments:
Post a Comment