A Christmas Message
1John 1:5 This then is the message which we have heard of him, and declare unto you, that God is light, and in him is no darkness at all.
As time goes on things become increasingly clearer to me.
Matthew begins his gospel with these words:
Mat 1:1 The book of the generation of Jesus Christ…..
He began hundreds of years before Jesus and went through the generations to the Christ and then told of the events that he, Matthew witnessed.
Mark’s good news starts:
Mar 1:1 The beginning of the gospel of Jesus Christ, the Son of God;
Mar 1:2 As it is written in the prophets…..
At that point Mark writes of John, God’s messenger, and the meeting of John and Jesus at the Jordan River.
Luke writes to his friend Theophilus that he:
Luke 1:4 That thou mightest know the certainty of those things…
Then Luke begins with the physical lives of John and Jesus.
John’s good news goes much farther back then any of the others:
John 1:1 In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.
Shortly afterward John the writer begins with the accounts of John the baptizer.
All these accounts of this, the greatest event, are done to give proof of the life of Christ. We get all caught up in the baby Jesus this time each year, but the real story is His life, His death and His resurrection.
What becomes more clear to me is the fact that we need to follow the examples of these men. Be like Luke, take time to tell your friends that Jesus saves. Be like Paul tell everyone you meet that Jesus paid our sin debt. Have you told anyone today? This week? This month? This year?
Paul wrote to the church in Rome and said:
Rom 10:9 That if thou shalt confess with thy mouth the Lord Jesus, and shalt believe in thine heart that God hath raised him from the dead, thou shalt be saved.
There are a lot of folks that believe in their heart’s but never a word comes out of their mouth’s. Look at this verse, if you confess and believe then you are saved. Jesus said if you are ashamed of Him, He will also be ashamed of you. You do not want you savior to be ashamed of you!
For whosoever will save his life shall lose it; but whosoever shall lose his life for my sake and the gospel's, the same shall save it.
For what shall it profit a man, if he shall gain the whole world, and lose his own soul?
Or what shall a man give in exchange for his soul?…
(If)Whosoever therefore shall be ashamed of me and of my words in this adulterous and sinful generation; (Then)of him also shall the Son of man be ashamed, when he cometh in the glory of his Father with the holy angels. Mark 8:35-38
It is time that we do as Jesus told us to do:
Mar 8:34 And when he had called the people unto him with his disciples also, he said unto them, Whosoever will come after me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross, and follow me.
If you are a Christian, then this life is not about you, it is about Jesus. Remember the whole life of Jesus, the gift from God the Father, and the promise that lives in you, God the Holy Spirit. Make a new years resolution that you can keep, confess that Jesus is your Lord before people. Tell your family that Jesus saves, tell your friends about the hope that lives in you, tell you enemies that Jesus loves them too.
Make this your new years verse, live by it. Do not deceive yourself:
James 1:22 (KJV)But be ye doers of the word, and not hearers only, deceiving your own selves. (CEV) Obey God's message! Don't fool yourselves by just listening to it.
Let me restate my opening thought; as time goes on things become increasingly clearer to me. Jesus is the Way, The Truth, and The Life no one goes to the Father in heaven except though Jesus.
Thank you all for praying for us this year, may God bless you for those prayers.
Just two sinners saved by grace, Randy and Teresa Myers
