Christmas: Glory to God, Peace & Goodwill to Men

Christmas: Glory to God, Peace & Goodwill to Men   Kelly Durant   Nov. 25,2012

Luke 2:14

Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace, good will toward men.

2. A good Day of Thanksgiving passed and I hope you had something good to eat! If you went with me to the Shelter raise your hand, about 20 of us had enjoyed an amazing meal there!

Did you notice in the stores already?  It is time for trees, lights, and gifts! And this is all because of a baby, baby Jesus!  it will be Christmas time before you know it! It is quite a miracle that Baby Jesus actually survived as one in 3 babies would die in that time period without medical attention in those days! Let’s hear a story of a baby that died, and of a baby that lived.

Let’s go back to the O.T., I Kings 3:16-28. Do you recall that King Solomon was considered wise? God offered him riches but he chose wisdom. The Proverbs, and Ecclesiastes in the Bible are full of wisdom.

How many of you know the story of when they brought to King Solomon  a situation of 2 mothers with 2 babies about the same months old? These 2 ladies lived in the same house and in the night one of the babies died. The problem is one lady claimed the other one stole her baby so you did not know who was the mother of the living baby and who was the mother of the dead one!?

Solomon in his wisdom said split the baby in 2 parts with a sword and give each woman half. Shocked, one lady yelled, “No! Don’t do that just give it to the other woman!” The other lady in her bitterness said, go ahead kill it and give us half each. But then Solomon in his wisdom said, wait, the woman who is willing to give up her baby, this is the real mother, the baby is hers!

3. I find that one can compare this same wisdom to baby Jesus of today. There are around us in the world, God’s children, people who are kind hearted doing many things for others, willing to give up anything for the sake of life and love. This time of year these people want too see Baby Jesus honored and special.

These are true people of honor, the ones that understand God’s gift to the world, that Jesus inspired us to love everyone, no exceptions. These people are the ones who will live eternally in heaven because they chose life, they always choose to do good because they love God and Jesus!

4,But like the mother who preferred to see a baby cut in two rather than share it, there are those amongst us of this nature that are greedy, evil, and cold hearted. They do not care for life or baby Jesus at all and only care for their own selfish consumption and material appetites giving no respect for what the Holiday of Christmas means!

These carnal people would prefer to see Baby Jesus and Christianity die and go away. These are people who are bitter against God and they hate the happy people who make Christmas special. They disrespect and profane all things pure and beautiful. These kinds of people with unrepentant hearts, full of hate are in essence comparable to being murderers and thieves, and as the Bible states are as condemned dry wood ready to be placed into the fire as this is what they deserve. 

1 John 3:15 Whosoever hateth his brother is a murderer: and ye know that no murderer hath eternal life abiding in him. God is just and has hell reserved for the souls of these people who reject Jesus. People without Jesus are horrible! They cause all who live near them to go through hell due to their angry, bitter, confrontational, vulgar, lying spirit. But God has heaven reserved for those that accept baby Jesus and become innocent and pure like He is!

5. Going back to Luke 2:14, the very first message from God through the angels when Jesus was born was “Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace, good will toward men”. This short sentence inspires me so much! There are 3 points.

What does this bold declaration mean in its totality? If the angels in heaven are worshipping a baby, then that should get our attention, right? They were glorifying God because baby Jesus would become the sacrificed one on the cross and be the savior of the world! The first lesson you and I must learn in life is that we must give glory to God for Jesus!

Giving glory to God is not just something you say, like in church when people say, praise God, we glorify you God, it is more than that; giving glory to God implies living a lifestyle of love! You glorify God by your actions and words, by imitating Him, but serving Him and others, by being as He is, full of love, holiness, and goodwill towards all men (and women)!

6. And where it says, “Glory to God in the highest”, “the highest” refers to the all-encompassing power and authority of God! The universe, and heavens high above us, and the symphony of the cycle of life that is high above our understanding, all imply that God is far beyond us!  He is perfect and all-knowing governing and preserving the stars and all chemical matter, the realms of angels, and the forces of nature and the people of earth! Psalm 113:4 The LORD is high above all nations, and his glory above the heavens. Science proves God is infinitely vast and complex and all of this interacting order proclaims the glory of a creator!

7. Next in the phrase, “Peace on Earth”, what is peace? It is an overwhelming calm where there is safety. You have seen the bumper sticker, ‘Know Jesus, Know Peace.  No Jesus, No Peace’, what a true statement this is! For as long as I have been involved with Christians, close to 40 years now, the thousands of testimonies I have heard all confirm one thing, that the lives of the people before Jesus were a torture and chaotic mess as they lived in a hell of guilt and confusion. But after accepting to follow Jesus their circumstances totally changed, to have a life of peace and fulfillment! Peace with God and peace even with conflictive people.

8. That is true in my life too! I got away from following Jesus when I went to High School and my life went downhill as I drank and partied and smoked pot and played in a rock band, but I was shocked with myself that I was not happy! I was doing all the things that the people of the world were doing to over stimulate my body’s pleasure cells but yet I was dying inside with a restless feeling like I was really killing my soul inside and in danger, feeling far away from God.

I had all the pleasures of the world as a young man but one day I woke up to realize I was just an empty self-indulgent copy-cat want-to-be who should just die to get out of the way because I was just taking up space. I just wanted to end my misery and frustration!

But one day after I prayed the prayer to accept Jesus, my whole world changed! This is why I am here today, to tell you about it, it is true, Jesus will give you peace, a peace that you have never experienced and it is worth the investment to leave behind everything, all your own misguided beliefs, all your way of being, and worthless life!

9. And finally, the last point of Luke 2:14 stated in the Holy Scripture, it is the “goodwill toward men” that many of us fail to capture. God giving me goodness or wanting goodwill for me? How is it that God wants good for humanity. Isn’t humanity terrible as we the people seem to always make war and kill multi-millions we destroy everything with our factories and corrupt cities?

In the end we must let this undeserved goodness impact us, God loves you and me beyond our comprehension! He sacrificed His son Jesus for all humanity for us to have eternal life! God only wants to give you and me good things in life, making us happy, giving us an eternity of goodness.  Most every Christian I know lives very blessed!

But many people make a train wreck of their lives and then want to blame God or others for their mess, but it never was God who failed them and didn’t give them their dreams! It was their own cruel self! God, all the time has good plans for each of us, but we must listen to Him and convert, and become sacrificial. Sacrificial as in giving up your own baby if you have to, embracing baby Jesus and life, peace, and goodness.

To have God’s good will working in your life, you must be in His will! This time of year at Christmas time serves as a reminder that the very first principle that God wants is for everyone to let the baby live in your heart, to accept Jesus as the savior of the world and as the savior of your soul.

Baby Jesus was born in humility and poor, He lived a modest life, and then He died in great pain to rise again in order to take away the pain and emptiness in the souls of all men and women, or better said, in you and I! Let Jesus do that for you today! Give Glory to God, accept His peace, & live in the goodwill He has for you in your life! Prayer…

Thanksgiving: True Compassion and Gratitude or Else!

Thanksgiving: True Compassion and Gratitude           by Kelly Durant 11-19-12

I John 3:16 Hereby perceive we the love of God, because he laid down his life for us: and we ought to lay down our lives for the brethren.17 But whoso hath this world's good, and seeth his brother have need, and shutteth up his bowels of compassion from him, how dwelleth the love of God in him?18 My little children, let us not love in word, neither in tongue; but in deed and in truth.

How many of you have ever seen beggars? I mean hungry ones with very sad faces? There are a lot of them in South America and each day I had to have a few pesos ready to give out. If you don’t help you are going to feel very bad thinking about how you did not help someone in need! Right? But you can always observe hundreds that do not care at all and just walk on by!

The first Pilgrim Colonists in 1621 in this country were literally dying of hunger after arriving to this land from England. They arrived in the summer and did not have time to plant for the harvest and they had no provisions for the winter. Immigrants seem to always have a hard time no matter where they move to! Right?

A Cuban I shared a coffee with one time told me he was so poor when he got here to Miami that he would catch pigeons on the beach in order to be able to eat! Sometimes we are unaware of how poor some people around us actually are! Never judge, appearances deceive!

We can be thankful for Thanksgiving Day because it has shaped Americans as a culture to remember to be grateful to God and to be compassionate! Americans have historically been one of the most generous helping people on earth giving over 240 billion to individuals or charity each year! Half of that goes to churches! This is one reason why Satan has been working so hard to divide and destroy our faith and this country! “Tolerance” the past few years seems to apply for every type of religion and all types of evil but “tolerance” is not offered to Christians the ones helping ministries with 120 billion a year! But Satan controls his multi-trillions!

The Native American Indians, and historically most cultures in the world, have a tradition of celebrating the fall harvests which sustains them through winter. Even pagan European cultures knew there was a God that provided and they had festivals as well. It was Pres. Abraham Lincoln that made Thanksgiving Day an official holiday in 1863 to, as in his words, “remember Almighty God”. But it had been celebrated for over 150 years prior to that!

It is amazing how the Indians showed compassion on these new strange white immigrants. Everyone today should celebrate this act of compassion and gratitude to God and and express gratitude to our remaining noble Natives! Thanksgiving Day should be a day in which we recognize God’s mercy through others and this should prompt us to show compassion on someone less fortunate in our society.

The irony of being a Christian is that we are supposed to live out compassion and gratitude in our every action, but often we may meet others that know and practice it innately because they are spiritual. All people still have a God consciousness (as mentioned in Romans 1) and God sees all. How much more Christians must do it!

The scripture of today, of showing compassion, was in its essence being practiced by a people that at that time were considered savages. Interesting God’s humor in how He used so called “savages” to save the Christians from hunger by throwing a big party and feast! But that set the stage for how every immigrant should be compassionate ever since that day!

This nation, founded by Christians, now lives with this standard and tradition of compassion and it is established as an example for all generations so that we too must keep the tradition and always be compassionate and feed and care for others. I would like to suggest that when we show the less fortunate compassion that we not forget that this includes the widows, the homeless, and the immigrants.

But for the cold hearted and compassionless, hear this warning: Proverbs 21:13  Whoso stoppeth his ears at the cry of the poor, he also shall cry himself, but shall not be heard.

These Pilgrims and the Wampanoag tribe gave an example of how all people can without any discrimination of race and class appreciate one another, love and share, and thank God that He is keeping them alive!

Think about this, God feels deep pain when he spares someone’s life and then later these same people become proud and greedy and forget Him! In other words God gets angry and judges severely people who are non-compassionate and unthankful!

Where do we find evidence of this? In the O.T., Moses freed 6 million Jews from the slavery of Egypt and how did these people respond? Did they praise Him every day? No! They complained constantly against God, they built idols to worship any god except the One who had saved them! Their punishment was to wander lost 40 years in the desert and never reach the promised land!

God has a way of judging and destroying the nations that are unthankful to Him! All the world’s super powers of the past, Egypt, Persia(Iran), Greece, and Rome, look at them today! They are still bankrupt, in turmoil, and divided! They have been cursed for several thousand years now because their people became aggressors to steal, enslave, and exploit instead of being people who were loving and giving, compassionate worshipping God!

Many Native tribes were peaceful and loving and spiritual, but others were war-like and they would invade and kill everyone in the peaceful tribes. This was the same scenario as in Europe where the white tribes of peaceful people were invaded by Vandals, Vikings, and other barbarous war like people. Today the aggressor’s identities have disappeared. And why is that?  Because it was prophesized by Jesus in Matthew 5:5 Blessed are the meek: for they shall inherit the earth.  But there are still not enough meek ones yet! The evidence is there, God humbles or He exalts!

Are we becoming a nation that is more overrun by greedy deceitful aggressors that will scam and rob and even kill old ladies to steal? Are we as a nation losing our protection and blessings from God because too many people have stopped being compassionate people who thank God for their lives? How have Christians gone wrong to be deceived to follow false doctrines? Psalm 9:17 The wicked shall be turned into hell, and all the nations that forget God.

I propose to you that as many as half of today’s so called Christians are no longer reading and following Biblical principles but rather they are following men and teachings that are filling them with bitternesses and destruction.  Many so called churches are now accepting false ideas and politics and the erroneous liberation theologies. They want justice, but in their own revengeful way and it is painful.

We believe that the despairing needs of others is solved by obeying Jesus example, and that is having a heart to God and a hand to man! We help as in I John 3:16!

Yet the modern trend is to believe that social justice, or caring for the poor, should be by force and carried out by imposing on the prosperous steep penalties, taxes and laws that permits the shifting of the wealth to themselves taking from others what they covet. This is a sign of the times. Listen to what the anti-christ will do.

Daniel 11:24 He shall enter peaceably even upon the fattest places of the province; and he shall do that which his fathers have not done, nor his fathers' fathers; he shall scatter among them the prey, and spoil, and riches: yea, and he shall forecast his devices against the strong holds, even for a time.

What it amounts to is Satan has always wanted to prove He is as good as God. Satan wants to appear compassionate! God’s way is the sacrificial way, the laying down of your life for others, the giving of your time, talent, and treasure to others giving them the gospel of salvation in compassion due to your gratitude to God.  True Christians willingly share with those in need!

But Satan’s imitation of compassion is the way of the warlike aggressors. Historically between Russia, China, and the rest 40 million or more have died under atheist Communism. Jesus exposed Satan in John 10:10 The thief cometh not, but for to steal, and to kill, and to destroy: I am come that they might have life, and that they might have it more abundantly.

God’s compassion is not bound by a race, religion, or place. Jesus example of the Good Samaritan points this out!  Compassion must be put into practice by those that know God or otherwise the world’s (or Satan’s) idea of compassion becomes a method of oppression and destruction!

The world can be divided into 2 types of people, the Satanic self-righteous condemning greedy destructive and imposing types who want to take from you or the sharing spirit –filled caring and loving type that thanks God for everything Which type are you?

In the end, you are either practicing compassion from God or you are not! If not, then you are comparable to the soon to disappear war-like selfish people of the past that forcibly took what they coveted to consume and destroy.

Only Jesus love can change hearts that are hell bent on stealing, invading, killing, and disrespecting other races and cultures! These atrocities still continue on today in the world in our metropolis mega cities, and in all countries everywhere.

Let us pray for a return to a thankfulness to God and a practice of real compassion! Thanksgiving today is needed more than ever!