Last night we had a most wonderful Christmas Eve service. The songs were well done and moving. The message was Isaiah 60:1-5 applied to Jesus’ birth and the changes His coming made in the world. Then it was applied to us, that we are to arise and shine because the glory of the Lord has risen on us, and though darkness covers the earth, His glory is seen on us.  Communion was rich with the realization that the bread was especially symbolic that night. The benediction was totally Holy Spirit. A person had asked if we were taking an offering. No, tonight is the night we remember the world receiving the greatest gift ever given.  May this Christmas be filled with thoughts of the One whose birth we celebrate and thanksgiving for the changes He is making in your life. Merry Christmas

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And the Light shown in the darkness, but the darkness did not understand it.

That night when Jesus was born defies description. Whatever one writes will fall far short of describing the enormity of it. So much of it is beyond our comprehension. Hands that hurled the galaxies into space were now the tiny hands of a newborn. The One that feeds all life by His marvelous design needed to be fed by His creation. The infinite God was an infant, helpless, dependent, learning, growing.

He was a part of a culture and yet He had His own culture. He was raised by a stepfather but had His own Father.  He was taught the Law, but He wrote the Law. He only had 30 years to do His predetermined work, and yet it would affect all of time and all mankind.

Love lay in a manger. Love would appear to be defeated and yet Love will conquer all. Love would appear to be forsaken by family and friends and yet Love would never forsake them. That Love was a light that still shines to the most remote corners of the earth. The darkness still resists, but it must flee before the Light. Love desires to make your heart a manger, to grow in you, to shine through you.  Won’t you let Him in?

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^{1John 4:2} This is how you can recognize the Spirit of God: Every spirit that acknowledges that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh is from God,
Merry Christmas! The anointed salvation of God (Jesus Christ) came in the flesh in the little grotto cave in Bethlehem. There, that is how you know who is from God. Immanuel, God with us! (Matthew 1:23[notes1] ) Do you believe it? To “acknowledge” in its Greek form is “to say the same thing”. Do you say the same thing as the declaration of God’s Word? Then you are from God. This is another of John’s many tests to assure us of our salvation.

Matt 1:23 (NIV)

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