Reflecting on God's Gift to the Human Race
Dear brethren, our reposting of this article is simply serving as a reminder to cherish the Gift of God to us. Also, we would like to extend a warm and blessed Christmas greeting to all our brethren without exception. Your prayers and support served as a memorable sacrifice to the Lord. Whatever good you did and intended has found true meaning in Heaven (Hebrews 6:10). We pray that the Lord increase His fear in you, and enable you to discern His will. May a Christ-centred conviction leads and render you more faithful in His eternal will in Jesus name. May your faith in the Lord leads you into more fruitful labour (Philippians 1:22) and may your suffering as a Christian reminds you of your pilgrimage in this world (1 Peter 2:11; 4:12-14).
With new year being next week, we would also like to encourage you to read this article http://www.preparingforthekingdom.com/2012_12_01_archive.html
Our Lord Jesus Christ is God's gift to humanity. We are told, "For God so loved the world that He gave His one and only Son that whoever believes in Him would not perish but have eternal life" (John 3:16 NIV). The Angel of the Lord said: "Today in the town of David a Savior has been born to YOU; CHRIST the Lord" (Luke 2:11 NIV).
The announcement by the Angel of God about our Lord's earthly birth was met with jubilant songs of praise and honor to God our Heavenly Father (Luke 2:13-14). From this account the heavenly Angels rejoice with man. After having witnessed this glorious scene in a vision, the angels led the shepherds to the town of David to investigate this for themselves and they found it just as the heavenly host proclaimed. This news was meant for all people and the shepherds spread the word, to everyone’s amazement (Luke 2:15-18). As it is, this good news is still available and being proclaimed to all. Some might reason saying, 'why all this fuzz about Christ'? Well, even Heaven made a noise about it! Let us read on.
The 'fuzz' is Christ Jesus came from Heaven into this world to bring us GOOD NEWS about eternal life. He is the light and life of man (John 1:9). Therefore, Him we must celebrate! There is no greater reason to rejoice and celebrate than to thank our Heavenly Father for our Lord Jesus Christ. He is the reason and the cause of our being (Acts 17: 28). We live for Christ and He died and rose again to life to be Lord of our lives (Acts 2:36). We should not celebrate Him just on Christmas day, but every day (Philippians 4:4).
Was Jesus Christ Born on Christmas Day?
Of course the answer is NO! Do we as a family or ministry celebrate Christmas? Yes we do, as unto the Lord. It is about Him. We serve and follow the Lord everyday He gives us but when the world celebrates Christmas we rejoice with them, for it is an opportunity to highlight God's gift to humanity and potentially many people get saved on this day. The message of hope and peace is going out to the saved and the unsaved alike; we celebrate this day and use it to harvest souls. We use all seasons to present God's message of salvation to the human race (2 Timothy 4:2). The world, on the other hand, uses Christmas as a way of cashing in, partying with a touch of idolatry. This practice has led almost the entire world to celebrate Christmas this way. This world as we know it is full of deceptions. What we consider as sacred, the devil through people makes a mockery of the good God intended. The worldly trend set by businesses the world over is now a well-accepted norm and entrenched in society. Our Christian message has been reduced to some fairy tale story of a Santa Claus. This practice is to distract attention from the Christian message of hope and eternal peace and life for humanity.
In the year 2010 a few days before Christmas, Charis asked me if the Lord was born on Christmas day. I told her “no” but she probed me for more answers, which I ignored. I praise the Lord this allowed the Lord to answer her on my behalf, saying "My birthday is not really on Christmas day". This came unexpected. While I knew previously that the Lord was not born on December 25, this served as a confirmation to us that we are called to serve and celebrate our Lord's birth, death and resurrection daily.
The Christmas Tree
Brethren, the Lord recently (November 2014) gave a warning to Charis and brother Glenn. He warned that many people including Christians are in the custom of decorating trees on or before Christmas and that this practice is idolatry (Jeremiah 10:1-4; Ezekiel 20:7). The Lord says, "They decorate a tree to idolize it in their hearts and their focus is not on Me".Therefore, if you are in the habit of decorating trees on Christmas day and take your children to the market or a park to go see neatly decorated Christmas trees, just know you cause your children to focus on an idol rather than on Christ. This truly is a grand deception the enemy has brought to steal the meaning of Christmas who is Christ our LORD. As we are looking at the Christmas tree, we are idolizing the creation of man instead of looking to God's gift to us, His Son our Lord Jesus Christ.
In conclusion, when the world celebrates Christmas, let us as truly born-again Christians strive to interpret the true meaning of Christmas to them positively. We do so by witnessing to them and celebrating in song and dance, not to worldly tunes but with melodies from the heart in great worship and adoration to our God of life (Psalm 96).
Great peace and love to you all on this day and may the GOOD promises of the Lord find its fulfillment in you in the next coming year in Jesus name.
We would like to extend an invitation to anyone who does not know the Lord Jesus Christ yet, or of you are not born again, to pray our suggested prayer on this link
by faith and follow the Lord (Matthew 4:19). You may also contact us for any questions or comments about this article or our ministry.
Brother Glenn.
