It's that time of year...and are you hearing the same old story???

The Saviour is born

It’s an old story.
It’s a well known story.
It’s a story that is not widely believed anymore.
It’s a story that provides a nice, warm, fuzzy feel to Christmas celebrations.
It’s a story that has been diluted to the concept of being nice to one another and helping and sharing with others.
It’s a story about God and power and sin and sacrifice and life and death.
It’s a story about me…

It is impossible to understand what this story means without knowing and accepting that this is all about a gift that you and I do not deserve…are never capable of deserving nor earning. Christmas is not…as some would say…all about the good within each of us. Rather Christmas magnifies/intensifies/amplifies our own selfish nature and inability to live and act out of concern for others. Hence frustration, guilt, greed, etc. Like Paul, the most worthless of sinners?

It is a story about the faithfulness and consistency of God’s love. It is a story about the His willingness to come down to my level…and lower in his dying…to be broken for me that I might live unconscious of my sin and guilt and unworthiness. Rather He would have me conscious of one simple fact…I am redeemed in the blood of Jesus.

For the true meaning of this Christmas story is found not in the events of that time surrounding the birth of Christ…but in what was to follow…his obedience to God’s will…his willing service to all people…his innocent suffering and death on the cross for me …his ultimate resurrection and ascension to the throne of heaven.

The baby comes to live and die in order that I might live forever.