The Christ of Christmas

“The virgin will be with child and will give birth to a Son and they will call Him Immanuel – which means, God with us”  Matthew 1:23.

Meditation: “God with us”. We celebrate Christmas because Jesus took on the form of man and left heaven to come to earth. Think for just a minute about what He gave up:

He became poor so that we could become rich.
He set aside all the glorious riches of Heaven to be born in a crude stable.
He stepped out of a world of perfection and splendor to take up residence in a place of distortion and death.
He gave up His place at God’s right hand to wander from city to city, residing periodically in borrowed accommodations.
He gave up a position in which all His needs were certainly fulfilled to experience hunger and thirst and exhaustion and disappointment and grief and betrayal and fear and pain.

Although through Him, God had breathed life into the universe, He would experience ultimately, what it meant to die. He did not have to do that, but He chose to do so because He loved us.

Do we really understand the significance of Christmas? Too often we think of home and family and pleasant surroundings. We think of indulging ourselves. We trade our wealth with family and friends in the comfort of our cozy and warm homes. But the true spirit of the Christmas, the spirit of Christ is a radical spirit of self-giving to people whose needs are profound—-even when the gift is unacknowledged or even spurned.

Challenge: How can you reach out to someone beyond the circle of those you already love and who already love you? What can you do to set aside your own convenience and give yourself to those truly in need?

Thought for the Day: Lord help me to be focused on the Christ of Christmas and to seek to give of myself as He gave of Himself.

Chris Garner

Used by permission – Fortified Marriages.

Maxim of the Moment

The bankrupt man is the man who has lost his enthusiasm. - H.W. Arnold