CHRISTMAS DAY Dec 25, 2013
The calendar tells me that today is the day that we celebrate each year, the day that Jesus came from heaven to earth as a tiny babe in Bethlehem so that we might know what our Creator God looks like. (Heb 1:1-4) NLT. "Long ago God spoke many times and in many ways to our ancestors through the prophets. And now in these final days, He has spoken to us through the Son as an inheritance, and through the Son He, God promised everything as an inheritance, and through the Son He created the universe. The Son radiates God's own glory and expresses the very character of God, and He sustains everything by the mighty power of His command. When He had cleansed us from our sins, He sat down in the place of honor at the right hand of the God in heaven. This shows that the Son is far greater than the angels, just as the Name God gave Him is greater than their names". To realize the true significance of why Jesus came, we must add to the "cradle" in the hay filled manger, "the Cross on mount Calvary", plus the "empty tomb" in which He spent three days, in order to understand the full meaning of our "salvation" that is ours, who are "born again" members of the "body of Christ" on earth today!!
Most of the people in our world who have never been exposed to the "Gospel of the Kingdom", unfortunately don't have a clue about the real meaning of this special day that we followers of Jesus celebrate as a "Holy Day". And especially in our Western World we have allowed "materialism" and the desire for "things", to be the focus of this day and very little, if indeed any thought, of it being the day to celebrate the birth of the Christ Child, who came to earth to destroy the effects of sin, is even mentioned. I'm sure this must be very displeasing to our loving heavenly Father, who sent His Son down to our sin-cursed earth to "reverse the curse" brought on creation by the sin of our first parents Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden. (Gen 3:1-7)
What sets the Christmas season this year apart from past years is a rather severe freezing rain storm that affected parts of Ontario, Quebec and the Maritime provinces, with heavy ice build up on the trees and power lines, causing wide spread power outages. Toronto was particularly hard hit with a lot of damage, and our part of NB where we have a lot of trees scattered among our housing developments. Our power was off for most of two days, with just a few minutes return periodically which caused much confusion to many households. I happened to be in SJRH rehab, recovering from another stroke, and managed to get home shortly after 5:00 PM the day before Christmas, when our power returned. So this year will go down in our memories as the year of the "Christmas Ice Storm", but thank the Lord for His grace to our family!!
Sincerely submitted.
Dave Jamer 25/12/13
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