Christmas: It Brings
Out the Best and the Worst In People Kelly
Durant 12-22-13
Luke 2:10 And the angel
said unto them, Fear not: for, behold, I bring you good tidings of great joy,
which shall be to all people.11 For unto you is born this day in the city of
David a Saviour, which is Christ the Lord.12 And this shall be a sign unto you;
Ye shall find the babe wrapped in swaddling clothes, lying in a manger.13 And
suddenly there was with the angel a multitude of the heavenly host praising
God, and saying,14 Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace, good will
toward men.
2. It seems many of our
parents were romantic people in February! Last month in November we had over a
dozen Birthdays of our members! Birthdays are fun and everyone gets to eat and
party just because you were born, nice right? But how would it be if everyone
celebrated your Birthday and no one invited you? Imagine all your friends and relatives all
eating and having a good time but you were not on their list of invited ones?!
How would you feel? Also think of the anger if you were the one paying for the
extravagant party at someone’s place and then everyone ignored you! This is
what happens to Jesus Christ every year on Christmas, too few worship Him on
Christmas celebrating it as His birthday!
God, Jesus, and the Holy Spirit become very
active every year in the Christmas season! People, I observe, become more
extreme and go through a lot of emotions and consequently do more good or more
bad at this time of year. With some people there is increased happiness, love,
and sharing, but yet with others, there is an abundance of anger, destruction,
jealousy, and greed. The very first Christmas started out with extreme feelings
and this pattern continues on this way ever since.
3. In these verses of
the Bible in Luke 2 of the story of Jesus, we see that everything began with
many wonderful sentiments for the good news! There was good news from the angel
communicating to the Virgin Mary before Jesus birth that her son would be the
Savior of the world. And then later when
Jesus was born the angels proclaimed good feelings to the common people, people
like you and me, the shepherds, that Jesus’ life brings glory to God and peace
to all men for perpetual generations!
Just imagine what joy, what love, what thankfulness,
and praise these receptive humble people felt! If you are God’s child you will
feel it too! Consider Joseph & Mary and the shepherds; we can try to envision
the bone shaking emotions they felt that night when the sky lit up with the
brightness of the Glory of God through the angels! There was great fear but it
soon became great joy and peace! God sent down pure love, pure happiness, pure
good intentions. How wonderfully emotionally moving Jesus birth was!
4. All things changed forever
with the birth Jesus! Before that moment in time no one on earth knew how much God
was a God of love! Since the beginning within all cultures, due to man’s sin
and separation from God, God was considered to be some angry distant “great one”.
He was cruel and demanded great sacrifices from his subjects, even human
sacrifices, and severe punishments ensued for minor infractions. No one in
Israel, or in the world, ever expected God, and his angels, to be ones who
would come in peace and love to save the souls of mortals like you and I to
live in a heavenly kingdom for all eternity! This is what it all means!
Christmas
implicates a new light of revelation and a new way of life! Jesus after growing
up communicated God’s precepts of love to live by, to love God and your
neighbor. He demonstrated His love for each of us in His power of healing, and
miracles. Without Jesus being the love offering of God we would be stuck in the
old Jewish system (or some Satanic one) of trying to appease the wrath of God
for our sins with animal sacrifices and burdensome traditions like some
continue on with today. Or we’d continue to suffer under horrible misconceived rituals
as was started in Egypt, and spread to Africa, Latin America, and all over the
world!
Every person on earth with all their
emotions should cry out with their voices in thanks to God like never before
for what Christmas implies! Christmas with Jesus birth brings salvation and
renovation of the soul, liberation from oppressors, and a better and different way
of life that produces love, joy, peace, and purpose.
5. It is sad but true but
there are people who hate Christmas and hate seeing others happy! If you don’t
know about this, search the web and you’ll be shocked at the very vocal Christ
haters! Since Christmas makes children and adults happy, there are demons out
there that detest it! There are many horrible, bitter, and willfully
spiritually blind rebellious ignorant people out there who hate Christians and Christmas,
Jesus, God, love and everything good! This is because they love their own selves
only, their god is their pride, evil ways, and sins, and they want to be
worshipped as god. These mockers at any cost they try to eliminate the good in
others by persecution, hate, cruel words, and mockery. After all, Jesus is competition
taking the focus away from them!
Recall
how King Herod was jealous and hated the fact that other kings and people arrived
to worship Jesus. Matt 2:16 Then Herod,
when he saw that he was mocked of the wise men, was exceeding wroth, and sent
forth, and slew all the children that were in Bethlehem, and in all the coasts
thereof, from two years old and under, according to the time which he had
diligently inquired of the wise men. Then was fulfilled that which was spoken
by Jeremiah the prophet, saying, 18 In Rama was there a voice heard,
lamentation, and weeping, and great mourning, Rachel weeping for her children,
and would not be comforted, because they are not.
The
murderous King Herod spirit continues on today in people who resist Jesus.
These people ignorantly or wilfully try to make Christmas into a frivolous
fantasy, or a greedy materialistic gifting event, which distracts from the
purpose of the event which is the worshipping of Jesus in admiration and
thankfulness for His coming! Another sad reality is some Christians even ruin
Christmas! The holier-than-thou people, thinking they are more doctrinally correct
(but are often quite unloving), criticize everyone’s enjoyment of Christmas
because Christmas to them is an evil pagan worship. Here is how I see it, all things
are what you make them to be, either used for good, or used for bad! True
Christians celebrate the fact that Jesus was born and no evil from 2,000 year
old customs ways in their minds!
Many corrupted souls derive pleasure in
ruining the happiness and fellowship of others! Often you are forced to share
meals with bad family members that destroy your Christmas spirit of love, happiness,
and unity. This year maybe you should
try something different and spend your Christmas with real worshippers of Jesus
and forget the rest! God divides between sheep and goats, between the good
people who are like Mary & Joseph and the humble shepherds, and the bad people
who are like King Herods: So we too as individuals must use discretion &
discernment.
6. This year I suggest
you talk non-stop about Jesus to your greedy materialistic insincere friends or
relatives. If after celebrating 10 or more Christmas’s with you and they are
still mockers of your faith in Jesus and critical of your church, and mad that
you give them only a simple gift, then give them the reward of some time alone
to learn to appreciate you, Jesus, and their blessings! I Cor 10: 20 But I say, that the things which the
Gentiles sacrifice, they sacrifice to devils, and not to God: and I would not
that ye should have fellowship with devils. 21 Ye cannot drink the cup of the
Lord, and the cup of devils: ye cannot be partakers of the Lord's table, and of
the table of devils.
At
Christmas time when people’s senses are getting awakened with pleasant pine smells,
when eyes are stimulated with colorful decorations, when sweet foods fill the
air it is unfair and unjust that an embittered, ugly, rude, critical, mocking
jealous person be in your midst sharing with you who has nothing good to say
about Jesus and about your service to God in your Salvation Army church or
where ever you attend! Remind ugly self-centered materialistic influenced-by-the-world
trouble makers of Jesus’ love and warnings! Here is one, Jesus says, “Don’t
give your pearls to swine who later want to trample you!”
7. It is sad but true but unless these Jesus
and Christmas haters repent and accept God’s gift to the world of love, and obey
Jesus’ message, unless they consciously transform into the total opposite of
who they are now, then their soul will become forever frozen in a burning fire
of guilt and shame forever, condemned to an eternal prison now and after death because
they, by their own choice, insisted on remaining infected by their own poisonous
pride, rejecting the healer who went to the cross, the Savior, the gift of Christmas, baby
Jesus!
Because of Jesus the life of the billions of
people who were, and are (and will be) Christians is so much better than the
billions of others who live without Him under horrible oppressive, unjust,
depressing regimes and sterile religions that kill their own people by the
millions! Life with Jesus today is so much simpler, so much more blessed with
the Holy Spirit’s joy, and life is so much more full of happiness, worship, and
joy because of Jesus coming on that beautiful first Christmas Day! It is great
to celebrate no matter if it was 12-25 or 3-25! And Jesus promised to return to
give us a place in heaven, so how wonderful is that!
If you have never fully accepted Jesus, if
you felt uncomfortable that maybe you are one of the ones who has been bitter
and resistant to God for all these years, then today is your chance to change!
Accept Jesus now and repeat this prayer with us…Dear Jesus, thank you for
coming to earth to show us God’s pure love. I ask you to forgive my sins and I
repent from the bad things I do. I accepted you, Jesus, as the Son of God into
my heart. Thank you for giving your life as a sacrifice on the cross for me so
I could attain the gift of eternal life. Give me your Holy Spirit to guide me
to obey every word you taught. It is in your name, Jesus, I pray, amen!
