Showing posts with label Christmas. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Christmas. Show all posts

Thursday, December 25, 2014

What Advent Points Us Towards

"This is what Advent points us towards. A seasonal reminder of presence. An annual celebration of God’s personal intervention and presence with us. Advent teaches us that God is with us and that God is for us. Advent shows us God-in-action working for his glory and for our good.  Our reflection of this reality cannot leave us to merely feel good about God with us, it must propel us forward to display the God whose image we bear." -- Jeremy Writebo

Related Links


Wednesday, December 24, 2014

Why Did Jesus Come?


Have we lost sight of what Christmas is all about? What did Jesus say about why He came? This is the Toastmaster speech I did for Project 9, Persuade with Power, on December 23, 2014.

Related Link

The Central Miracle

"The central miracle asserted by Christians is the Incarnation. They say that God became Man. Every other miracle prepares for this, or exhibits this, or results from this. Just as every natural event is the manifestation at a particular place and moment of Nature’s total character, so every particular Christian miracle manifests at a particular place and moment the character and significance of the Incarnation." -- C. S. Lewis

Related Links

The Word Became Flesh

Here is a poem by Sam Storms about the incarnation that I came across. Take a few minutes to ponder what it says.

     The Word became flesh!
     God became human!
     the invisible became visible!
     the untouchable became touchable!
     eternal life experienced temporal death!
     the transcendent one descended and drew near!
     the unlimited became limited!
     the infinite became finite!
     the immutable became mutable!
     the unbreakable became fragile!
     spirit became matter!
     eternity entered time!
     the independent became dependent!
     the almighty became weak!
     the loved became the hated!
     the exalted was humbled!
     glory was subjected to shame!
     fame turned into obscurity!
     from inexpressible joy to tears of unimaginable grief!
     from a throne to a cross!
     from ruler to being ruled!
     from power to weakness!

There is more in the blog post which this poem came from. Christmas Paradox: The Word Became Flesh
   

Tuesday, December 23, 2014

Every Day Can Have Eternal Significance

"The mundane acts in the life of Christ remind us there is meaning in our daily tasks. The Incarnation shows us that every moment of every day can have eternal significance. When we file paperwork or sweep the floors we have the opportunity to do it as the image of God, portraying him accurately as Christ did." -- Andrew Spencer

Photo by KOREphotos

Related Links

Monday, December 22, 2014

It Was Good News

"It was good news to men that the Second Person of the Trinity added humanity to His deity, because it meant that there really was something compatible between God and man. Man can never become God; but if God can add humanity to His deity, it demonstrates that man really is made in His image. The incarnation shows that God is not necessarily an enemy to humanity. We never read that Jesus took the nature of angels, but He did take the nature of unfallen humanity. " -- David Guzik

Related Links

Sunday, December 21, 2014

For This Reason Only

"Christ has been manifested in a human body for this reason only, out of love and goodness for His Father, for the salvation of men." -- St. Athanasius

Related Links
The Christmas Gospel - Scot McKnight
The Story of Christmas - An Animation (12:57)
Christmas is About a Tree (4:10)

Tuesday, December 25, 2012

Advent: God with Us (5:03)


Christ is coming. He has come, and He will come again. This is the message of Advent.

Related Links

The Christmas Mission (2:32)

Monday, December 24, 2012

The Story of Christmas - An Animation (12:57)



An excellent explanation of how Christmas fits into the big picture of the gospel and the Bible.

Related Links

O Come All Ye Faithless (1:28)


Jesus came not for the faithful but for the faithless!

Related Links

Sunday, December 23, 2012

The Babyhood of God - Oswald Chambers


“The tremendous revelation of Christianity is not the Fatherhood of God, but the Babyhood of God – God became the weakest thing in His own creation, and in flesh and blood He levered it back to where it was intended to be. No one helped Him; it was done absolutely by God manifest in human flesh. God has undertaken not only to repair the damage, but in Jesus Christ the human race is put in a better condition than when it was originally designed.”

“Beware of posing as a profound person; God became a Baby.” -- Oswald Chambers

H/T - Trevin Wax

Related Links
 

Saturday, December 22, 2012

Christmas Creed


Christmas Creed

I believe in Jesus Christ and in the beauty of the gospel begun in Bethlehem.

I believe in the one whose spirit glorified a little town; and whose spirit still brings music to persons all over the world, in towns both large and small.

I believe in the one for whom the crowded inn could find no room, and I confess that my heart still sometimes wants to exclude Christ from my life today.

I believe in the one who the rulers of the earth ignored and the proud could never understand; whose life was among common people, whose welcome came from persons of hungry hearts.

I believe in the one who proclaimed the love of God to be invincible:

I believe in the one whose cradle was a mother's arms, whose modest home in Nazareth had love for its only wealth, who looked at persons and made them see what God's love saw in them, who by love brought sinners back to purity, and lifted human weakness up to meet the strength of God.

I confess my ever-lasting need of God: The need of forgiveness for our selfishness and greed, the need of new life for empty souls, the need of love for hearts grown cold.

I believe in God who gives us the best of himself. I believe in Jesus, the son of the living God, born in Bethlehem this night, for me and for the world.

Anonymous

Related Links

O Little Town of Bethlehem (5:42)


Hear what the people of Bethlehem have to say about Jesus.

Related Links

Friday, December 21, 2012

The Unique Gift of Christmas | Tim Keller

“No other religion–whether secularism, Greco-Roman paganism, Eastern religion, Judaism, or Islam–believes God became breakable or suffered or had a body. Eastern religion believes the physical is illusion. Greco-Romans believe the physical is bad. Judaism and Islam don’t believe God would do such a thing as live in the flesh.
But Christmas teaches that God is concerned not only with the spiritual, because he is not just a spirit anymore. He has a body. He knows what it’s like to be poor, to be a refugee, to face persecution and hunger, to be beaten and stabbed. He knows what it is like to be dead. Therefore, when we put together the incarnation and the resurrection, we see that God is not just concerned about the spirit, but he also cares about the body. He created the spirit and the body, and he will redeem the spirit and the body.

Christmas shows us that God is not just concerned about spiritual problems but physical problems too. So we can talk about redeeming people from guilt and unbelief, as well as creating safe streets and affordable housing for the poor, in the same breath. Because Jesus himself is not just a spirit but also has a body, the gift of Christmas is a passion for justice.

But Christians have not only a passion for justice but also the knowledge that, in the end, justice will triumph. Confidence in the justice of God makes the most realistic passion for justice possible.” -- Tim Keller
Related Links

Presence (2:16)


God's presence appeared to Moses as a firey bush as well as an earthquake. To Job God came as a powerful whirlwind. The reaction to God's presence was always one of fear but when Jesus came all of that changed. God was now approachable and personal and because of His saving work we can now enter boldly into God's presence.

Related Links

Wednesday, December 19, 2012

The Christmas Gospel | Scot McKnight


Awhile ago I shared a post written last year by Scot McKnight on "The Christmas Gospel". This year he has written a four part series with the same title. In it he explains how what is written in the gospels about the birth of Jesus reveal to us the gospel message.
  1. The Christmas Gospel 1 
  2. The Christmas Gospel 2 
  3. The Christmas Gospel 3 
  4. The Christmas Gospel 4
Related Links

Christmas in a Nutshell (2:00)



Admit it, you've given some terrible gifts. There's someone who has never given a bad gift, though...GOD! For Christmas, however, He gave us something no one could've imagined. 

Related Links