Christmas is a season of celebration dedicated to the solemn remembrance of the birth of Jesus Christ. During this yuletide season we bid each other joy and jolly and we spend time with close family and friends with the merriment of gift, music and food. As joyful as this season may be for many, we know that it is also a season of sadness and despair for those affected by the tragedy of loss, grief, heartbreak, poverty and sickness. It is truly a multitudinous period of mixed emotions and varying seasons of life.
Last week, during one of my early morning devotions, the Lord impressed upon me a unique perspective on Christmas for our edification and today I would like to share this word of encouragement with all of my readers. I should warn you however that – todays message is not your typical Christmas message because thankfully, we do not serve a typical King!
Have you ever pondered on how marvellous the birth of Jesus Christ was? God who is the Trinity in One sent Himself through His Son, Jesus Christ, to be embodied in human flesh to redeem both you and I. God was mindful of each and every one of us as undeserving sinners and He moved from the invisible supernatural realm of spirit into the visible physical realm of flesh in order to orchestrate His clever redemption plan.
Jesus Christ was born with every intent to die! Think about this for a moment!
When we give birth to our kids, we do not ever give birth with the thought of death following closely behind. We hope for long life and every good thing under the sun for our kids. But imagine this, we are celebrating the birth of Jesus Christ whose only reason for being born was to die for us on the cross so that we would not be damned to hell and separated from Him through eternal death.
Isaiah 55:8-9 (NIV) says:
“For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways, declares the Lord. As the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts than your thoughts.”
Remember I told you we do not serve a typical God!
The birth and death of Jesus Christ would also become a symbolic shadow of what God would require of us as believers in reverse. Because of Jesus’ miraculous birth and intentional death, He was able in all His wisdom to take away the keys of death from the Devil himself. The birth of Jesus Christ afforded us the opportunity to be redeemed by God’s grace and not by the unachievable law of works, animal sacrifice and religiosity.
Just as God sacrificed His Son for us, He also requests that we sacrifice our carnality to live by way of the Holy Spirit that resides within us. God requires that we die to our flesh in order for us to be reborn by the Spirit as a new creation.
Jesus was born so that He may die in order for us to die so that we may live! This is the true merriment of Christmas!
Jesus’ birth date ought to be a symbolic reminder of our own new birth date. The day we truly decided to accept salvation and kill our Adamic nature so that we may be reborn with the new nature of Christ.
We are not only celebrating the birth of Christ but in fact, the new birth of ourselves as well. Just as the seed must die to give birth to a plant, so too must Adam’s seed in us be rendered dead and powerless so that the Tree of Life can sprout within us and grow planted by the rivers of living water.
John 3:16 captures the heart of the gospel and by extension Christmas:
“For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life.”
We may not know the exact date of when Jesus was born, but we use this Christmas season as our yearly time of symbolic celebration for God’s gift of life.
Let’s read Galatians 4:4-5 (NIV):
“But when the fullness of time had come, God sent forth his Son, born of woman, born under the law, to redeem those who were under the law, so that we might receive adoption as sons.”
God sent forth His Son so that we may be adopted as sons. Today we celebrate not only the birth of Jesus Christ but in tandem our adoption as sons and co-heirs with Christ. While we share a myriad of gifts during this yuletide season, we ought to remember the true gift of salvation that we were all given. God has literally taken many of us out of the scum of poverty, addiction, abuse, pride, religion, sexual impurity and so much more and offered us a new, prosperous and abundant life in Him.
Today we say thanks to our Daddy Jesus and we do not simply say thanks in words but through our obedience to His will and His way.
I admonish you today to celebrate God in spirit and in truth and not in your carnality. If you have not given up your flesh and submitted to the will of God for your life, then you have missed the point of Christmas. God is not impressed by the splendour of our words and giving during the Christmas season. God will not be mocked neither will he be fooled by our words of thanks and good works.
There is only one thing God desires of us this Christmas – DEATH to one’s flesh.
Do not let the birth of Jesus Christ be in vain and count for nothing in your life. As you remember His birth today, remember WHY He chose to be born in human flesh. Jesus Christ was born so that we may be born again.
Today is a good day to meditate on Romans – Chapter 8.
Be Merry in Christ Everyone!
I absolutely love this