During this season, we are busy preparing for the biggest day of the year: Baking cookies, stringing lights on the tree, attending Christmas parties, going shopping, and wrapping presents.
Christmas can also be a very depressing and lonely time of the year for many. While family and friends gather together, many are left alone. Others are left without gifts, food, or shelter. Others may have lost a loved one and Christmas is just not the same anymore. It can crush someone’s spirit when they don’t feel joy and cannot celebrate as others do.
Jesus cares. It’s through Him that we share His same spirit to help and assist one another in life. A kind word, a hug, a listening ear, a warm touch, or simply a smile can heal unspoken wounds or silent tears.
Jesus is with you in the most desperate of times. His name, “Emmanuel” means God with us. Yes, we may ignore his presence when everything is going great in our lives, but He never leaves us regardless if we acknowledge him or not. He patiently waits for us to come to Him. He is patient and kind and loves us more than we will ever know.
Through all the exciting festivities, I challenge you to take time out during the holiday season to focus on the reason for the season which is the birth of Christ. The Lord sent His Son for our salvation which is the greatest gift in the world. His presence is forever with us. We are part of His heavenly family once we acknowledge Him and accept Him into our hearts as our Lord and Savior.
I-pads, tablets, iPhones, the latest video games, or flat-screen TVs will never compare. Jesus is the greatest Christmas presence ever known.
“Behold, the virgin shall conceive and bear a Son, and shall call His name Emmanuel.”Isaiah 7:14
“Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace, goodwill toward men.”Luke 2:14
“But God, who is rich in mercy, for his great love wherewith he loved us. Even when we were dead in sins, hath quickened us together with Christ, (by grace we are saved.”Ephesians 2:4-5
Love is lacking or non-existent in our nation, communities and most importantly in our homes. Some may have felt it, yet abused it. Others long for it while others desperately search for it. Many may take it for granted while others never felt it or experienced it. But, unconditional love is something that can’t be forced.
How does a four letter word carry so much weight and complexity? It can drive someone over the edge or force another to change their personality, values or morals to please.
There are so many levels of love: Loving a parent, sibling or child as well as a husband or wife, partner and friend. We can also love our houses, cars, sports, electronic devices and other treasured possessions.
Love is a powerful emotion. It can wound us. Reject us. Control us. Destroy us. However, this is a human kind of love.
Pure, genuine love heals all wounds. It is forgiving. “Without love the most magnificent manifestations of gifts and the most heroic self-sacrifice means nothing. Love suffers long, having patience with imperfect people. Love is kind. Love does not envy since it is non-possessive and noncompetitive. Love actually wants and allows other people to get ahead. It wants the best for you. It does not parade itself. Love is self-sacrificing. Love is not puffed up or treats others arrogantly. It does not behave rudely, but displays courtesy. Love does not seek its own or demands precedence, rather it is unselfish.
Love is not provoked; it is not irritable or touchy, rough or hostile but is most graceful and merciful under life’s demands and pressures. Love thinks no evil and does not keep an account of wrong doings but instead it erases resentments. Love does not rejoice in iniquity finding satisfaction in the shortcomings of others and spreading gossip. Instead love rejoices in the truth, aggressively advertising the good in people. Love bears all things, defending and uplifting others in discouragement. It credits others with good intentions and is not suspicious Love hopes all things and never gives up on people, but continues in affirming their future and hope. Love endures all things, persevering and remaining loyal to the end.”
We have the capacity to love because God lives within us. There is no other love on earth like God’s love. We can search for people or things to fill the void in our lives but we will continually come up short. We will never come to terms with being loved by God until we understand the capacity of God’s love for us.
Unfortunately, we often feel we are not good enough to be loved by people or by God. We live in condemnation, fear and judgment thinking that God could never love us. When things go wrong, we feel God is punishing us for our mistakes, behavior, thoughts and actions. We often blame God when things go wrong.
Some of Satan’sgreatest weapons is the use of fear, doubt, shame, guilt, regret and confusion.He constantly taunts us of our faults, failures, weaknesses, circumstances and problems. The end result is a spiral of negative thoughts and emotions due to accepting defeat and failure. The devil is a liar.
The devil uses the same plots and schemes. He is not creative. Once you recognize his bag of tricks, you will understand how to defeat him through the Word of God.
God is forgiving. God loves us more than we will ever be able to comprehend. He loves us no less than He loves His Son. He actually waits for us to come to Him in prayer. God celebrates us!
Sometimes it is much easier to forgive others than ourselves. You will not have peace until you learn how to forgive. The guilt or shame can weigh you down and eventually destroy you. You must also learn to love yourself just as much as you love others.
Please don’t let shame or guilt rob you of believing that you’re in bondage. “Who the Son sets free, is free indeed.”John 8:36
“As far as the east is from the west, so far has He removed our transgressions from us”Psalm 103:12.
The Lord will redeem your mistakes. Every evil thing that the enemy meant for your harm will be turned around for your good. Genesis 50:20.
Building a relationship with the Lord is not built on repentance only. It is based on worship and praise for who He is; not on what He can do or provide.
God understands you and knows your heart’s desires. “Before I formed you in the womb I knew you, and before you were born I consecrated you.” (Jeremiah 1:5).
The Lord’s characteristics is of peace and not of harm. “For I know the plans that I have for you, plans to prosper you and not to harm; plans for a hope and a future.” Jer 29:11
You are deserving of God’s love. It is the reason He shed His blood on the cross so we may have eternal life. “God so loved the world that He gave his only begotten son that whosoever believes in Him will not perish but have everlasting life.”John 3:16
His love does not have to bought, earned, manipulated or controlled. In 2014, let’s walk in love by first receiving and accepting God’s love as a prime example of His nature and honoring our bodies, minds, thoughts and actions by serving one another in love.
“Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall tribulation, or distress or persecution or famine or nakedness, or peril, or sword?” Romans 8:35.
“For I am fully persuaded, that neither death, nor life, nor angels nor principalities, nor powers, nor things present, nor thing to come. Nor height, nor depth, nor any other creature shall be able to separate us from the love of God which is in Christ Jesus our Lord.” Romans 8:38-39
“And behold, there was a great earthquake, for the angel of the Lord descended from heaven, and came and rolled back the stone from the door where Jesus laid. His countenance was like lightening and His raiment was as white as snow. And for fear of Him the keepers did shake, and became as dead men. And the angel answered and said unto the women, Fear not ye; for I know that ye seek Jesus which was crucified. He is not here; for He is risen, as he said. Come see the place where the Lord lay. And go quickly, and tell His disciples that He is risen from the dead; and behold, He goes before you into Galilee, there shall ye see Him.” Matt 28:1-7
The death, burial and resurrection is the most important declaration of faith we can pronounce in our hearts and in the world. Jesus is alive and lives within us. As another Easter passes away, we should keep the remembrance of Jesus’s sacrifice with us daily.
We should walk with the authority that Jesus has given us. We have the same resurrection power that Jesus has because He lives within each believer. Time passes, weather shifts, people change, yet there is one man who walked the earth over 2000 years ago who was crowned with thorns, falsely accused and sentenced to death. At one moment, the crowd was raving over him and the next minute, they yelled, “Crucify Him!” He was mocked and beaten while He stumbled carrying a wooden cross. “But He was wounded for our transgressions, he was bruised for our iniquities the chastisement of our peace was upon Him, and with His stripes we our healed.” Isaiah 52:5
“He was oppressed, and He was afflicted, yet He opened not His mouth; He is brought as a lamb to the slaughter; and as a sheep before her shearers is dumb, so He opened not His mouth. Isaiah 52:7
He is a man who does not change. His love remains the same. No matter what we’ve done we can ask for forgiveness. It’s a special, unconditional love that the human mind cannot comprehend. It is a deep-rooted love that allowed Christ to take the penalty for our sins. He did not come to condemn the world, but to redeem the world. “God so loved the world, that He gave His only begotten Son that whosoever shall believe in Him, will not perish, but have everlasting life.”John 3:16
So, as we go about our week, let’s carry Easter in our hearts and minds daily and share Jesus’s story with a lost and desperate world.
“All power is given unto me in heaven and in earth. Go ye therefore, and teach all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, and the Son and of the Holy Ghost. Teaching them to observe all things whatsoever I have commanded you: and lo, I’m with you always, even unto the end of the world. Amen Matt 28:19-20
Writing with Purpose 