Sunday, December 23, 2012

What’s So Special about Christmas? – An Amazing Celebration!- PART 3




 
Whether you are a mom or dad, married, single, divorced, have a family, a blended family, are a grandparent or a cousin… we all love celebrations! (Some of us may just like them quieter than others.) We celebrate when our hockey team wins the big game, when we get that great new job or promotion,  our best friend's birthday or even just getting our little ones bathed and into bed on time!

But what about Christmas? Do we celebrate it with as much enthusiasm? 

Isn’t Christmas a time of incredible joy, a time to reflect on love, relationships and about a special gift that was given to us? A time to celebrate with family and friends? To get out the best dishes, have a great meal together, exchange gifts or simply to just be together?

Nevertheless, some of us would just like to get through Christmas and would just be happy when it’s all over! 

Well, maybe you did have a rough year and things didn’t go as you had planned. But when we look above our circumstances there is something much more important to think about and celebrate!

“But the angel reassured them, ‘Don’t be afraid’ he said. ‘I bring you good news that will cause great joy for all the people’– Luke 2: 10 

What is this good news?

Why shouldn’t we be afraid?

And what is the reason for all this celebration?   

Didn’t you hear? 

It’s a birthday party for Jesus! 

He is the baby that was promised so many years ago. He is the one that came to save people from their sins, the Christ. That is why we say "Merry Christmas"!

Christmas Eve and Christmas Day are special in that many of us may enjoy going to a traditional Christmas Eve Candlelight Service, or spending Christmas day with our family and friends to express love and hope as we are able in the spirit of the birth of Jesus Christ.  What an amazing miracle!

Do we believe in the miracle of Christmas? The child that came to us and for us? Are we afraid of Him or have we accepted Him? Will we receive this good news and believe it with all our hearts?

If we do, it will change our lives! 

In the excitement of this change it stirs ours hearts to celebrate this new life of trusting and believing Jesus as Lord and Saviour just like the angels do in heaven!!

Knowing that God loves you and wants the best for you can change your whole outlook on life. What a great decision it is when we make Him apart of our lives! He has a purpose for each of us and wants us to succeed. If God is for us who can be against us? 

Christmas is a reminder of God’s goodness.  He is love, no matter whether you think you deserve it or not, and He will never stop loving you.  His love is greater than we can imagine or understand. 

 “…So that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith. And I pray that you, being rooted and established in love, may have power, together with all the Lord’s holy people, to grasp how wide and long and high and deep is the love of Christ, and to know this love that surpasses knowledge—that you may be filled to the measure of all the fullness of God. Ephesians 3:17-19

Jesus is God in the flesh. God sent his son Jesus to be born of virgin.  He left the comforts of heaven and came to earth. He didn’t enter this world in a flashy way but came humbly and was born in a stable. He grew up to be a man who worked like us and followed God’s ways and faced temptations just like we do. But He was still without sin and did what God the father asked Him to do. He came to show us how to live, then to die for the sins of the world that we could have eternal life through Him. 

Today we celebrate not only His birth but also His resurrection because He is alive! He arose from the grave and went back to heaven to be with His father. When He left He gave us the Holy Spirit to be with us. This is the true Christmas story and the birth of Jesus is what this celebration is all about!

We all have different ways of celebrating Christmas, but may it be an amazing celebration of this wonderful miracle that took place not only in Bethlehem but hopefully has taken place in our hearts as well.

How will you celebrate this Christmas? What choices will you make and what does this celebration mean to you?


Wishing you all a meaningful Christmas filled with love, joy and peace,
Jeannette Petkau

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