What Is Christmas?

What Is Christmas? Is it an endless shopping list or a depleted bank account or an overflowing credit card? Is it fir trees, candy canes, holly wreaths, bells, tinsel or toys? Is it the sound of piped music played to set the mood for maximum consumer response to insure a seasonal commercial success? Is it Santa; photos, office parties or holiday breaks?

Is Christmas a family gathering around lavishly spread Christmas dinner or a barbecue and the inevitable over-indulgence that seems to follow?   To give Christmas a sacred touch, is Christmas attending a concert or carol sing or switching channels to catch a traditional seasonal Christmas movie?

A Christ-centred Christmas is about perishing men needing to be rescued and lost men needing to be saved. Christmas is God giving His Son to the world and His Son giving Himself for our sins. "For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son that whosoever believeth in Him should not perish, but have everlasting life.

Christmas is Christ the Son of God becoming the Son of Man that sons of men might become sons of God. (I John 3:1) Christmas is much more than tinsel, ribbons, presents and parties or a hectic rushing to and fro; giving and getting temporal gifts that will have no value in eternity. It is the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ who came to give us the greatest of all gifts, eternal life

If you are one of those seeking to know the true meaning of Christmas, He stands ready to come into your heart this season and share the true meaning of His birth, life, death and resurrection. Is there room in your Christmas for the real Gift of Christmas? Why not open your heart to Him in real faith and He will come into your heart and life? Then you can truly say with Paul and those of us who have received Him, "Thanks be unto God for His unspeakable gift!"

Your Christmas Wish

Christmas is an exciting time of the year. We wait with great anticipation for the opening of gifts. Will our most important Christmas wish come true?  If you could have just one wish this Christmas, what would that wish be?  Would you wish for real peace on earth this Christmas! As our world seems to teeter totter on the very brink or war in this day of crisis and conflict, what a marvelous thing that would be! If all the threat of violence and war would suddenly vanish and 'absolute peace prevail among men and nations.

Would you wish for real lasting.,joy and happiness this Christmas? In a world of sin, sorrow and sadness the pursuit of true happiness and permanent fulfillment seems never ending. But it often seems our blue skies are cloudy, our rainbow has no end and our ship never comes in. And even the momentary thrill and joyous laughter of our Christmas mornings die in the air and the tinsel, treasure and glitter become the litter of Christmas afternoons.

Would you wish for real love to fill your,life and permeate all your relationships this Christmas? In the tensions and pressures of today, real loving relationships are hard to achieve, and often seem so fragile and easily shattered that they are even more difficult to  maintain.

Would your Christmas wish be to receive a lasting gift?  A gift  above  all gifts? A gift that keeps on giving?  Jesus Christ, the real Christmas Gift, is the incarnation and embodiment of man's deepest' spiritual desires. That first Christmas Day marked His arrival on earth on a mission of mercy to fill the emptiness of the human heart.

The wish for peace has been fulfilled in Christ. Real peace on earth must begin with peace in each human heart. Only through the forgiveness of God that Christ the Peacemaker can bring can a real reconciliation be achieved. Paul said that only those justified by faith have peace with God. 'Then he asserted that although such peace is beyond man's ability to understand or express, it is a real and lasting peace.

Our deep desire for lasting joy and true happiness can only be fulfilled in Christ. Man's common experience confirms that temporal joy and happiness are elusive and fleeting. But the angels heralded Christ's coming as a mission to bring joy and fulfillment to man on earth. And those. of us who have experienced Him personally know such joy eludes expression in the human tongue.

Of all the needs common to man, true  love is the greatest. To be loved, warts and all, with an unselfish love that expects nothing in return, seems the greatest yearning of the human heart. But where, in this egocentric world we live in, can such pure and unselfish love be found?

Such love can only be found in the true meaning of Christmas. In God giving His only begotten son for the sins of the world and the Son giving His life that we might have eternal fife. In our being offered through Jesus a loving Father-Son relationship with the Creator of our universe.

If you could have just one Christmas wish what would that wish be? The gift of God, eternal life, is the gift Christ came to give all who would receive Him when He came to. earth on that first Christmas Day. It can be yours if you will simply receive Him in simple child-like faith. (John 1:12) Only then can you know what Paul when he said,  "Thanks be unto God for His unspeakable gift!"

Why We Should Have Thanksgiving

Many in Australia may not know that the primary and most widely celebrated family holiday in America is Thanksgiving Day. It is the day that everyone who is anyone would like to go back to his or her roots and spend the day enjoying a special traditional home cooked Thanksgiving meal with their family. No matter how far one roams from the land of his birth, this remains the case. As one with this heritage, I would like to share with you some facts about this special day and its origins.

In 1621 a little band of pilgrims, who had fled the religious persecution of an established church and sought religious freedom in a new world, paused in their struggle for survival to feast and give thanks to God for His blessings upon them. They feasted and gave thanks, in spite of the fact that the hardships involved in hewing a haven with their bare hands from the sombre, granite hills of Plymouth, had already taken the heavy toll of over half their number.

Their meal was sparse. It primarily consisted of such things as native turkey, maize, pumpkin and cranberries; food the native Indian tribes had shown them how to gather and prepare. It is said that when they sat down for that first Thanksgiving meal they found five kernels of corn on each plate. This served as a reminder of the hardships they had endured during the previous year when rations had been reduced to five kernels of corn for each person each day.

A little over 150 years later, in 1789, George Washington, the first President of the new nation, issued this national proclamation of Thanksgiving, “Whereas it is the duty of all nations to acknowledge the Providence of Almighty God, to obey His will, to be grateful for His benefits, and humbly implore His protection and favour . . .etc..” Some seventy-five years later President Abraham Lincoln made and proclaimed the last Thursday of November a perpetual national Day of Thanksgiving. Even though the nation had just lost over a million of her sons in an awful and deadly civil war, the aftermath of which would soon take the President’s own life, there was still much for which to be thankful. Those of us who have the blessings of freedom today also have much to be thankful for.

We should give thanks for the grace of God. “O come, let us sing unto the LORD: let us make a joyful noise to the rock of our salvation.” (Psalm 95:1))

We should give thanks for the greatness of God. “For the LORD [is] a great God, and a great King above all gods.” (Psalm 95:3)

We should give thanks for the goodness of God. Ps 100:5 “For the LORD [is] good; his mercy [is] everlasting; and his truth [endureth] to all generations.” (Psalm 100:5)

We should give thanks for the gift of God. “Thanks be unto God for His unspeakable gift.” (II Cor.

9:15)