Sunday, December 25, 2016

Christmas is about Love, a Healing Love (12.25.16)

What's the first word that comes to your mind
when you think about Christmas?
 

Is it gifts, family, friends, parties, pain, loneliness, or even debt?
How do you feel about another year to celebrate Christmas?
If Christmas is going to be everything you dreamed it would be, one word I hope you associate with Christmas is the word "Love," because Christmas is all about love. It's not about what Hollywood tells us it is. It's not about a winter wonderland, kissing Santa under the mistletoe, or even putting up a tree.

Christmas is receiving the love of GOD, because Christ, whose birth we are celebrating, is GOD's ultimate expression of His Love. "Therefore the Lord Himself will give you a sign: Behold, a virgin will be with child and bear a son, and she will call His name Immanuel" (Isaiah 7:14). Immanuel, means "GOD with us," the incarnation of GOD in human flesh, GOD and man, GOD born of a virgin, GOD with us in the form of a child.

Do you realize how much GOD loves you? He loves you so much that His Son left Heaven, came down and confined Himself to the womb of a woman. He was born a human being; GOD in the flesh.

Christmas is all about a baby who was laid in a manger with the shadow of a cross looming over it.

The baby that laid in the manger is the Lamb of GOD who died to take care of your sins and mine. The Lamb of GOD who would hang on Calvary's cross. The Lamb of GOD whose blood would be a ransom, a payment to redeem you and me out of the slave market of sin. The Lamb of GOD who would die, be buried, and be raised again on the third day, never die to die again. The Lamb of GOD who would say, "He who believes in Me will live even if he dies" (John 11:25).

He knew why He had come. He was born to die; so that you and I, who were dead in our sin, might have life. He came so that you and I who were separated from GOD, might be reconciled to GOD.

Christmas is about love, a love that reconciles, a love that takes two who are at odds with one another and again makes them friends. Love reconciles.

It's not GOD who needs to be reconciled to man, but it's man who needs to be reconciled to GOD. Christmas is about love and a love that heals. Love salves our wounds and brings healing to us. This is what Christmas is all about. Christmas is receiving the Love of GOD and then giving it to others. Is there someone you need to forgive, someone who needs to hear from you, "I love you?"

Let this Christmas be a time to focus on loving others and loving GOD.

It's a process, but what a perfect time of year to begin taking steps towards making things right with a loved one and with GOD.
 Merry Christmas,
  -  Marilyn


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