In two short days we will be celebrating the birth of mankind’s Saviour – Jesus, the Christ; Emmanuel, God with us! To think that God – the Creator of ALL people and things – should leave His lofty throne to put on a tent of flesh and dwell among us perfectly, be rejected by His own creation and His own chosen people, suffer and die by those same hands that He created, and doing all this so that He might save us! Amazing love! Truly good tidings of great joy to all people. We are blessed!
Emmanuel – God with us – and, as Paul would explain the mystery of the gospel, God living in us. This is truly the transforming joy of Christmas. That joy came at such great cost that it should cause us to humble our hearts, yet lift our voices in gratitude and praise.
Regardless our trials or happiness, let us not forget the blessings of Emmanuel, as one old-time holiness writer describes: “Jesus is called Immanuel, or God with us, in his incarnation.—God united to our nature—God with man—God in man.—God with us, by his continual protection.—God with us, by the influences of his Holy Spirit—in the holy sacrament—in the preaching of his word—in private prayer. And God with us, through every action of our life, that we begin, continue, and end in his name. He is God with us, to comfort, enlighten, protect, and defend us in every time of temptation and trial, in the hour of death, in the day of judgment; and God with us, and in us, and we with and in him, to all eternity.”
As you read or listen to these scripts as narrated by Bill Johnson (simply click on their title), we urge you to keep your heart and mind fixed on the blessing, joy, and hope of Emmanuel – God with us!
Merry Christmas from all of us here at American Decency Association!
“The world tells us that love means affirming and admiring; the Scriptures do not,” Alistair Begg writes.
As Americans, our worldly “love” has become a powerful weapon. Foreign governments go on our news channels and do photo-ops with celebrities to win our sympathy. Domestic activists accuse us of failing to love, or even of hating, their preferred segment of the population.
All of this manipulates our Biblical ideal of loving our neighbor, and it works because we don’t know what Biblical love actually is.
Biblical love doesn’t mean giving everyone what they want in the moment they want it; it means looking to God’s Word to see what’s best for them and helping them to receive that.
That changes how we react to mothers with unwanted pregnancies, kids with gender confusion, or even foreign military aid. Are we helping our neighbors receive God’s best for them? That is Biblical love.
Proverbs 23:23 begins with the admonition, “Buy the truth, and sell it not.” Truth is a most precious commodity. If we align ourselves with it, regardless our situation, it will keep us, counsel us, comfort us, and eventually set us on heaven’s shore.
It’s vital that we don’t “sell truth” for any comfort or perceived gain. Our hearts are weighed by its treatment of truth. The trials of life test us, helping us to know what God already knows. How do we respond to affliction and trial for the sake of Christ and His Word? Does impatience, rebellion, or despair arise within? Or does trusting in His truth bring us peace? Blessings come with their own set of tests. Praise can arouse pride or riches may promote worldliness, but if we cling to truth, truth will take care of us.
Jesus is the Way, the Truth, and the Life!
With Christmas just behind us and the New Year in sight, we recognize that Jesus, the grace of God that bringeth salvation, ties these two days of hope together.
For many, the New Year is like a fresh piece of white unwrinkled paper. It’s almost holy; we hardly dare to even think of touching it. We know disruptions must come and wrinkle our fresh paper, but we hope to take a modicum of control over it by making New Year’s resolutions, promising that things will be different.
We forget, in our nearly obsessive-compulsive desire for control, that life is messy. People are messy. Even we are messy. Thanks to sin, the paper isn’t as white as we imagined it, and the search for control and peace that we long for cannot be found within.
Jesus, defeater of sin, is the only hope for a new life this year.
To view this article in your browser, Click Here
For more information, articles and newsletters, please check out our website at https://americandecency.org/
You can support ADA financially by visiting: https://give.cornerstone.cc/americandecency
Call us:
231-924-4050Email us:
info@americandecency.orgWrite us:
American Decency AssociationCopyright 2024 American Decency
