Bible Walking
  • Blog Morning Minute
  • PAUL FERGUSON THE FIGHTER
  • Lordship Salvation - Dr. Robert L. Sumner
  • Blog: The Encourager
  • Links
  • How to be Saved
  • Contact Us
    • About
  • Bible Verses
    • Verses on Prayer
    • Why/How to Memorize
    • All Verses
    • The Packet 22
  • Sermons/Devotions
    • From the Desk of Pastor Bill Compton >
      • Bill's Audios
      • Bill's Biography
      • Contact Me
      • Bill's Desk Archives
      • Bill's Potpourri
      • BillSermons
      • Bill's Witty Bits
    • From the Desk of Pastor Kent Kelly
  • Books/Pamphlets
    • Whose Is the Land?
    • Be Filled With the Spirit - Lee Roberson
    • Life of Elijah by A.W. Pink
    • How to Get More Out of Your Bible - Wiersbe
    • History 2nd Amendment
    • How I Know God Answers Prayer - Rosalind Goforth
    • Biography-Charles G. Finney
    • Fundamentalism Then and Now - Greg Barkman
    • What Does It Mean (to Me) John MacArthur
  • Books/Pamphlets

christmas is beautiful!

11/30/2017

0 Comments

 
Picture
       Christmas is Beautiful!
For unto us a child is born, unto us a son is given: and the government shall be upon his shoulder: and his name shall be called Wonderful, Counsellor, The mighty God, The everlasting Father, The Prince of Peace.  (Isaiah 9:6)

And let the beauty of the LORD our God be upon us: and establish thou the work of our hands upon us; yea, the work of our hands establish thou it.  (Psalm 90:17)


Christmas is beautiful! How else can we say it? In all the ways beauty can be generated by human beings, it is done the best and the most at Christmas time. It is celebration at its best! Money and time and labor are spent to express something in us that must be done. No law requires it. The government does not send out teams of enforcers to make sure everybody is supporting Christmas.

Christmas has a life of its own like trees that bud and bloom in the spring and brighten into a massive bouquet of color in the fall. It is predictable that it will occur this year and next year and on and on. One might think that people will tire of Christmas but so far, there’s no sign of Christmas growing tired. The best music is performed and played at Christmas time. The prettiest and most dazzling sights are portrayed at Christmas time. The most exciting kitchen aromas and delicious foods appear at Christmas time.

Of course, we are now thinking about the outward expressions of Christmas. This outward celebration that is caught every year by our massive population has amazed me ever since I was a child. Thousands of people who have no relationship with Jesus Christ fall into Christmas celebration. So many human things come out of us and merge during Christmas celebration. Business reporters tell us that many merchants sell one third of everything they sell at Christmas time. They depend on the mood of shoppers to turn loose of their money and put the merchants in the black.

There is something about the collective mood of millions of people, including unchurched people, that is absolutely astounding! Some early shoppers put up tents on the parking lots of shopping centers and stay there for days to be the first in line when the doors open on “Black Friday,” the day after Thanksgiving. Fist fights may erupt over a wind-up toy or a special doll on sale. What happens to these people who are so intense on spending their money, even running up their charge cards in a buying frenzy?  Are we touched with insanity? Have we lost our minds? Or is there some deep-seated thing within us that is being acted out? I rather think there is something deep within the human spirit that is being acted out.

For many, it’s a brief relief from an impoverished soul that is crying out. Relief! For one week, one month, this celebration will get our minds off our trouble, grief, and sorrow. In 1943 we were in the middle of the hottest war in the history of world. It was uncertain which flag would be flying over our post office when it was over.

Bing Crosby sang: “I’ll Be Home for Christmas” in 1943 and it went off the charts. People bought it and played it over and over again. The radio stations played it. We couldn’t hear it enough. “I’ll be home for Christmas if only in my dreams.”  That’s it! Christmas is about the celebration of home for a brief time. Underneath it, under the pile somewhere was the faint memory of what Christmas was all about…oh yes! The birth of a special baby! But the baby takes a back seat to the celebration of home. Every year the suicide rate spikes upward. Thinking of home is more than some can bear and they are overwhelmed with despair and kill themselves.

The celebration of Christmas has come to mean “The Celebration of Christmas Celebration.” We are celebrating celebration. Celebration has taken on a life of its own. Time to get drunk. Time to buy a new car. This kind of celebration must always be capped off with a surprise downloading of snow. Can’t have with Christmas without snow. (My eight years in Florida taught me how to have Christmas without snow.

CHRISTIAN PEOPLE WHO TRULY KNOW THE LORD have a big advantage over those who celebrate for the sake of celebration. Yes, it’s about family and home. But foremost, it is about the babe in the manger, angels, shepherds, a mean Herod trying to kill the Christ child. It’s about Moses who said a messiah was coming. It’s about prophet after prophet who wrote: “He’s coming!” He who was coming as a babe in a manger would also come to carry his cross up Golgotha’s hill to his own place to be nailed to it. He would also rise from the dead and leave his mission in the hands of twelve very human men. Christmas is the story of stories for children.

When we celebrate Christmas with beautiful trees with lights and ornaments and pageants acting out the humble story, let’s be glad when many children are there for the celebration. Let them learn the story of Christmas well. Let us be glad when mothers bring their babies and toddlers in their arms and be glad when they cry and have to be carried out for a few minutes. The babies, the toddlers, remind us of that special baby in the manger and the toddler that rich wise men traveled many miles to see. Love the babies! Love the toddlers! Love the children who may leave candy and chewing gum wrappers in the pews and mess up the rest rooms.

We, who know the Lord, can quote Isaiah who said:  For unto us a child is born, unto us a son is given: and the government shall be upon his shoulder: and his name shall be called Wonderful, Counsellor, The mighty God, The everlasting Father, The Prince of Peace.  (Isaiah 9:6)

We can say with Moses, who wrote Psalm 90: And let the beauty of the LORD our God be upon us: and establish thou the work of our hands upon us; yea, the work of our hands establish thou it.  (Psalm 90:17)

I like what McGee wrote about Moses, who wrote Psalm 90:17: “Oh, to do something in this life that will have value in eternity! My friend, Moses out there in the desert, pausing day after day in the wilderness march to bury someone, got a perspective on life that many of us do not have. What a beautiful and practical psalm this is!” (McGee)

(You remember that at this stage of the game, Moses was having to preside over thousands of people who had rebelled against God and were having to wander around in the wilderness until they died off. It is said that in that dying-off period, there was a corpse for every step they took until they were all dead. Then the younger generation could fight the long, up-coming war over the land they were going to take after they crossed the Jordan river.

That’s the time period when Moses wrote Psalm 90. He dared to talk about the beauty of the LORD being upon them and there was death everywhere he turned.)

Christmas is beautiful! Even if millions of Americans don’t understand what Christmas is about. There’s a beauty and power about it that filters down to them as pagans and unbelievers. The celebration of Jesus’ birth is beautiful! Ω

 Read Through the Bible in a Year
 DECEMBER 1, 2017 - FRIDAY
 A.M. Ezekiel 45-46      P.M 2 Peter 3
(Bible Gateway will read this to you if you like. Look for the speaker icon.)

A Good Verse to Memorize:
For unto us a child is born, unto us a son is given: and the government shall be upon his shoulder: and his name shall be called Wonderful, Counsellor, The mighty God, The everlasting Father, The Prince of Peace. (Isaiah 9:6)

 
Song for Today: 
Hallelujah Chorus (Handel’s Messiah) (3:57) (Choir of King’s College, Cambridge – Boys’ Choir and Orchestra)  

 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C3TUWU_yg4s                 
  You may have to adjust the volume and delete an Ad
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

 

0 Comments



Leave a Reply.

    Author

    Dan Carr is a "retired" pastor, writer, teacher and continues to write at this website. This blog and other articles are e-mailed free to anyone who wants them. Go to: 
    http://www.biblewalking.com/
    contact-us.html.  


    Dan and Barbara live 
    at Flat Rock, AL between Chattanooga, TN and Huntsville, AL. on Sand Mtn.
    We enjoy gardening, reading, church, family and friends.

    Archives

    March 2020
    February 2020
    December 2019
    November 2019
    October 2019
    September 2019
    August 2019
    July 2019
    June 2019
    May 2019
    April 2019
    March 2019
    February 2019
    January 2019
    December 2018
    November 2018
    October 2018
    September 2018
    August 2018
    July 2018
    June 2018
    May 2018
    April 2018
    March 2018
    February 2018
    January 2018
    December 2017
    November 2017
    October 2017
    September 2017
    June 2017
    May 2017
    April 2017
    March 2017
    February 2017
    January 2017
    May 2016

    RSS Feed

    Categories

    All
    Abomination
    Beauty
    Bible
    Brokenness
    Christmas
    Church
    Comfort
    Creation
    Crucifixion
    Death
    Depression
    Easter
    Encouragement
    Faith
    Fire
    Gifts
    God
    Gospel
    Growing
    Hear
    Heaven
    Hope
    Hunger
    Jerusalem
    Jesus
    Joy
    Judgment
    Lie
    Love
    Love God
    Meditation
    Messiah
    Persistence
    Poor
    Praise
    Praise Of Men
    Prayer
    Promises
    Prophecy
    Rest
    Resurrection
    Rich
    Sin
    Sinners
    Thanksgiving
    Tragedy
    Truth
    Unbelief
    Word
    Worship