A Christmas Parable

  This is a paraphrased story that I heard on the radio titled "If only" by David Crabtree. Some of you may have heard it . For those who haven't, I hope you enjoy it as much as I did.



   John approached his wife to break the news to her, "I not going to the Christmas eve service at the church with you this year. You know that I have never really believed all of that Jesus being God and coming to Earth as a man stuff. It would just be hypocritical of me to go."
  John's wife was disappointed, but understood his point. She loaded up the kids and left without him.
  John was sitting in a chair by the fireplace reading a book when he heard a thump behind him. He looked around the room but didn't see anything and turned back to his book. Then there was another thump, and then another.
  John got up and walked over to the large window. Outside the window were several small birds flopping around in the snow after trying to fly through the window in search of warmth and shelter. John couldn't stand to see the birds out there in the cold, he knew that they would die in the cold if he didn't do something. So, he slipped on his boots and his coat and went out into the snow.
  He went to his barn, opened the doors wide and turned on the light, but the birds payed it no mind. He then went into the house and brought out some bread that he crumbled and made a trail into the barn, but the birds ignored the bread. Running out of ideas and desperate to save the lives of the birds, he opened his coat and tried to herd the birds into the barn, but they just fled in different directions.
  John realized that the birds were terrified of him and all of his attempts to reach out to them and save their lives just frightened them even more causing them to run from him.
  "If only I could become a bird and could communicate with the birds, if I could speak their language I could fly down among them and tell them how to be saved. If only I were a bird..." he thought to himself.
  At that very moment, as John helplessly watched the birds flopping around in the snow , the church bells began to ring loud and clear. John heard the bells and realized in that moment that he was one of those birds. He was flopping around in the snow of his life, bound to die with no hope of salvation. But Jesus did what he wanted to do. God came to Earth as a man named Jesus so that we wouldn't be afraid, speaking our language so that we would understand how to get to the salvation that waits in the barn. In that moment, John understood and fell to his knees right there in the snow and prayed for the salvation that Jesus came to provide.

  If you have struggled with the concept of  God taking the form of a man in order to save you, I hope that this story clarifies things for you.  Again, as soon as I find who the writer of the story is and it's original name, I'll post it (and a link if possible) so that you can hear the original.

The Miracle of Christmas

  We are one week away from Christmas, and I have been thinking a lot today about the miracle of Christmas. Then I remembered that not too long ago I was made aware that there are actually people that, due to unusual circumstances (in this particular instance the person was deaf), do not know what Christmas is really all about. So, let's start at the beginning, the very beginning.
  In the garden, Adam and Eve broke the one and only rule that God had given them. From that day forward mankind has been cursed with an inescapable sin nature. That sin nature separated us from God because we were no longer holy. The penalty for that sin is death and separation from God and an eternity in the flames of Hell. The only way to overcome that penalty is by the shedding of blood for sin. It is for that purpose that Jesus had to be born.
  "So, what does all that have to do with Christmas?" Christmas is the celebration of the birth of Jesus. From the prophesies to the virgin birth, everything about His birth is miraculous.
  There are several prophesies that address His lineage. Genesis 22: 18 declares that He will be a descendant of Abraham, Genesis 49: 10 declares that He will be born of the tribe of Judah, Numbers 24 :17 says that He will be a descendant of Jacob, Isaiah 11: 10 puts Him in the line of Jesse, Jeremiah 23: 5-6 shows that he is the heir to the throne of King David. All of these fulfillment's are shown in the book of Matthew 1: 1-16 where His lineage is traced from Abraham all the way through His earthly father, Joseph.
  Micah 5: 2 indicates that He will be born in the town of Bethlehem. Isaiah 7: 14 declares that He will be born of a virgin and that His "name will be Immanuel". The name Immanuel means "God with us". Psalm 2: 7 and Proverbs 30: 4 tell that He will be the son of God; Luke 1: 32 and Matthew 3: 17 declare the fulfillment.
  These are just some of the prophesies that were made and fulfilled. Jesus is the only man in history who has ever fulfilled every prophesy in the Old Testament. To see more, you can follow this link http://www.godandscience.org/apologetics/messiah.html
  The miracle goes far beyond the supernatural nature of His birth. It is in the fact that God himself loved His creation enough to come down to earth, take the form of a man, and knowing exactly what he would have to endure, did it anyway to pay the price for our sins so that we would have a way out of our deserved punishment.
  Yes, I did say that Jesus is God. John 1: 1-3 reads "In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was with God in the beginning. Through him all things were made; without Him, nothing was made that has been made." This makes Jesus Himself the creator of the Universe.
  The Deity of Christ was demonstrated many times throughout His life through the healing of diseases, the casting out of demons and raising the dead to life. The finale to all of this was when he suffered disfiguring abuse, allowed Himself to be crucified as a blood sacrifice for our sins, and then resurrected himself from the grave to overcome and defeat death to prove beyond doubt that He is God.
  This is the miracle of Christmas. This is why we celebrate the birth of a baby born 2000 years ago.

 

Ancient Religions

  This is a spontaneous post, like many I will write, that will be inspired by something I see on television; usually on History channel. And these will always be subject to updating.

  Today, I'm watching a show about angels and their origins. I have often noticed a trend in these shows that the History channel produces on religion. They work very hard to minimize Christianity and its root of Judaism.
  They try to say that the Jewish faith, and therefore the Christian faith, originated not from the initial relationship that God has had with mankind beginning with Adam and Eve, but from other "older" religions such as Zoroastrianism which contains a single entirely good god and an entirely evil one who is in serpentine form. That religion also has angelic beings similar to ours and some have similar names (Cherubs vs. Kerubs). I understand that these people don't have a relationship in truth with God and that's why they are so easily led astray. I just wish that they would consider the truth, even if they just portrayed it as an alternate idea that could stand on it's own rather than a religious soup that has pulled from other religions for all of it's central ideas.
  The truth is this; that God created mankind for relationship with Him at the beginning of creation and has walked with mankind throughout history.
  These "intellectuals" have it exactly backward. As the population of the earth expanded and people began to move throughout the world, they took these teachings with them. Before man developed the written word, it was told orally, and anyone who has ever played the rumor game knows how that can turn out.
  So, what makes Jews and ultimately Christians, different? The difference is that through Abraham, Jews sought after truth and a relationship with the one true God, until God Himself gave Moses the first 5 books of the Old Testament to be written down and therefore made firm.
  The writings of Moses and the prophets who followed were verified in truth by the prophesied birth, life and death of Jesus, the Christ. This fact negates who put their belief system in physical writing first, because none other was given to them by the one true God who had the power to back it up!
  

Taking Christ out of Christmas

  Have you ever seen someone use the abbreviation "X-mas"? Does it disturb you the way it does me? Some may ask, "why does that bother you?" I'm glad that you asked. It's the "X". We use that symbol to mean that something is being removed. In this case, the thing being removed is the very "thing" that is central to this specific holiday... Christ!
  "So what's the big deal, why does it matter?" This is a Christian holiday that celebrates the birth of the messiah, Jesus. Jesus being God, who stepped down from Heaven to take the form of a man. He chose to be born like every other human being, go through childhood, adolescence (and all of the awkward changes that go with it), temptation, peer pressure, pain (physical and emotional), ridicule and abuse so that we would know that he can relate to us and everything that we go through as humans. Not only that, but He came into this world for the expressed purpose of being the ultimate sacrifice for our sins. No other man in history has ever done so much for the human race!
 From the beginning, sin required the shedding of blood for forgiveness. God knew exactly what He would have to endure (to get a grasp on his suffering, I recommend watching The Passion of the Christ. Excellent portrail of what the Bible describes that Jesus went through), and He did it anyway. That is how much he loves His creation, you and me.
  Every time that someone uses "X-mas", or focuses their Christmas celebration on gifts and "goodwill" or ignores it all together, they metaphorically slap Jesus in the face and tell Him that His sacrifice means nothing to them. We shouldn't be afraid of offending anyone, as I said, this is a Christian holiday. I'm not saying that gifts and "goodwill" are bad and should be scrapped, but they should not be the focus of the celebration. The focus should always be on Jesus and His predicted virgin birth.
  Yes, I said predicted. There are many prophecies in the Old Testament that foretold not only that He would come, but how and where and Jesus met every single prediction. The birth of Jesus is special, not because He was a great man, but because he is the son of God.
  So let us remember the reason for the season and sing Gloria, en excel sis deo: Glory to God in the highest! And may each and every one of you have a very Merry Christmas!
 

I would like to add a side note here... Stores make a lot of money off of our holiday, the least that they could do is to declare "Christmas sales" rather than "Holiday sales". If they are going to make money off of our God, then they should at the least have the courage to say the name of the one that they profit off of. And if they can't bring themselves to do that, then we should take our money somewhere that will.