This morning, I came to the real awareness that it has long been ingrained in my head that even though I am a Christian and know why we celebrate Christmas, I am still almost completely caught up each year in the gifts and the tree and the lights and the festivity and less so in the true Reason for the Season!
I kept thinking about Pastor Troy's calling us out to give our greatest gift and it really, finally sunk in that the real reason we celebrate Christmas is because it is the celebration of the greatest gift ever given - SALVATION - which began with Jesus' birth those thousands of years ago! He didn't come wrapped in shiny paper, sitting under a tree! He was born in a stable and was wrapped in strips of cloth to keep him warm...
It sounds crazy to me that this is the first time it really sunk in - but it finally happened because for the second year in a row, God has been teaching me the hard way that my heart and mind were focused on the wrong things! Here I was, sitting here feeling sorry for myself and it hit me - what am I feeling sorry about? What do those brightly wrapped gifts mean anyway? So maybe I could have given my husband a shirt - maybe he'd like it, maybe he wouldn't...
In the long run, how does this do anything to bring God to someone; to bring Him glory? When any of us receive a gift at Christmas, do we truly spend any time thinking how wonderful God is that we got that great gift?
That's when it hit me - my greatest gift is the gift that will show someone who Jesus is and truly ENRICH their lives with the ability to develop a relationship with HIM and receive salvation!!!!!
Today's devotional by Pastor Brian talks about a personal revolution - thank you God for my own personal REVOLUTION!!!!
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4 comments:
To explore the unknown, to move beyond what we are told, and to revolt against the unquestionable is my definition of a Personal Revolution. Salvation from what? Who create the thing we must be saved from? When we are saved, then what. Make no mistake I am a believer in Christ and his unlimited potential
I consider a revolution to be a dramatic and radical change to the way you think or act! My personal revolution was in the dramatic change in thought that Christmas was about the lights, the tree and the gifts under the tree and realizing that t was about God giving us the greatest gift ever - Salvation... Salvation from ourselves, because left to our own devices, we will always fail; left to our own devices we will always sin, and the Bible teaches us that the wages/consequence of sin is death! When we are saved, we are granted the gift of eternal life - not life as we know it here on earth, but life with Christ in eternity. These are some great questions... Read John 3: 1-21, for an example of what the Scripture teaches about this subject! Thanks for the feedback! :-)
I see you are a woman of conviction, finding your life purpose is the most important aspect of living. Not matter what your perspective.
I admire your conviction and sense of purpose. Thanks for being willing to share and being open to my perpective.
In closing why would God create us to be our own worst enemy? What if we were created to live our purpose and the sin is simply to not live our purpose? Sounds too simple, but what if?
Wow, that's another really interesting question... My only answer can be that I don't think God created us to be our own worst enemy.
Genesis 1:26-31 teaches us that God created man to be in His own image and likeness and to rule over all of the other earthly creations.
He created man, told him to be fruitful and multiply, and after man was created, the Scripture says that "God saw all that He had made, and it was very good."
I believe that God created man with an innate ability to make our own choices - what we call 'Free Will' - so that in every situation, we always have a CHOICE about which path to take!
Genesis 3:1-19 teaches us that when faced with an opportunity to make a CHOICE, man made the wrong decision and that this SIN separated us from God's initial plan for mankind...
So in a way, we were created to live a purpose - but man chose sin over that purpose. However, that was not God's intention or hope for mankind - it was God's divine wish that man would choose to follow His purpose for us, but to create a man with no ability to make one's own decisions and to choose for himself would have been no different than the creation of the animals and livestock - Man had to have free will to be different and to bear more of the image and likeness of God!
I don't know how well I explained my view on that - I hope it makes some kind of sense :-)
What are your thoughts on that view?
(By the way, if you're okay with it, can you leave even just your first name within your comment so I can call you something instead of "Anonymous"? - smile)
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