The happiest person is not someone who received a wonderful present on Christmas, but someone who after days in an open boat, or after hours in a crippled airplane, or after minutes in a burning building, is RESCUED!We thrill when we read of the rescue of miners or of mountain climbers or of a child who has fallen deep into a well. What irony when a soldeir risks his life to save a buddy, only to have this buddy refuse help, claiming that he can solve his own problem. And then he dies!
The greatest rescue operation of all time began on the first Christmas Day. Yet most of us refuse to be rescued! We are confident that we can solve our own problems. We deny that we are in danger.
But man's danger is fantastically great:
the 'ordinary' dangers of sickness, accident, war, poverty, and death
striving for the wrong goals in life
misplaced self-confidence and uawareness of the spiritual world
the lack of realization that he is destined to live forever - in unspeakable sorrow or in unspeakable joy.
In fact, man's danger was so great that the infinite God had to become man in order to rescue man. No one else could do it! God became man in the person of the baby Jesus. That is why Christmas is so important.
You see, man has sinned. Now sin is not some minor weakness that can be cured by a few good intentions, or a few good works, or even a few prayers and other religious activities. No, our sin was a rebellion against God; a selling of ourselves to the devil; a total pollution of our wills and minds and souls.
The only rescue from this pit of degradation is by someone taking the punishment due us and also having the power to clean up our innermost being.
And this is exactly what Jesus Christ did. Since He is the sinless Son of God, he could bear the infinite anger of God against all sin. And He sends His Spirit into the lives of all who come to Him to cleanse them from every impurity.
The proof of God's amazing love is this: that it was while we were sinners that Christ died for us. No condemnation now hangs over the head of those who are 'in' Christ Jesus. For the new spiritual principle of life 'in' Christ Jesus lifts me out of the old vicious circle of sin and death.
But this rescue must be accepted. We must confess our sin, ask God's forgiveness, and accept the only way of salvation: faith in Jesus Christ.
If we freely admit that we have sinned, we find God utterly reliable and straight forward - He forgives our sins and makes us thoroughly clean from all that is evil.
For God loved the world so much that He gave His only Son so that everyone who believes in Him should not be lost, but should have eternal life.
What a wonderful salvation from a horrible condition! This is why it is a ... Merry Christmas!
To know more about the Christian faith, feel free to join the Living Water group blog. You need not be a Christian to join the group ... all you need is an interest to find out more!
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