Each moment we live a gospel we write,
a chapter today, a verse tonight.
Your gospel is written by the deeds you do,
the words you speak, the actions you take, the truth about you.
Those around you see by the life you live,
your very capacity to give and forgive.
When your race is run
and your living is through,
you leave a book called,
“The Gospel According To You!”
Genesis 1:1
1In the beginning God (prepared, formed, fashioned, and) created the heavens and the earth.
What is truth?
How can we know truth?
In America, for many years we had certain presuppositions which influenced the way life was lived.
The basic presupposition was that there really are such things as “Absolutes.”
We accepted the possibility of an “Absolute” in the area of “being” (or knowledge), and in the area of “morals.”
If anything is true, the opposite is false. If one thing is right, its opposite was wrong.
Today our world is in a “mess” because of the rejection of Biblical absolutes.
The greatest absolute in the entire world is found in Genesis 1:1- In the beginning God…
Without this absolute nothing makes sense.
Man can never understand himself by beginning with himself.
Man can only understand himself by beginning with God.
What every man needs to do is to meet God. God has revealed everything about himself that we need to know to respond to Him in worship.
Worship of God is always limited to our knowledge of Him because we cannot extol Him beyond our concepts of Him.
Many Christians are more interested in the principles of God than in the person of God. They give to God, receive from Him and work for Him, but never enter into a personal relationship with Him.
The purpose, the reason for man’s existence is found in the first commandment of Christ:
Mark 12:30 - And you shall love the Lord your God out of and with your whole heart and out of and with all your soul (your life) and out of and with all your mind (your faculty of thought and your moral understanding) and out of and with all your strength.
This truth causes me to know what man is and who I am.
What will you do to get to know Him better?
2 Corinthians 9:15
Now thanks be to God for His Gift, [precious] beyond telling [His indescribable, inexpressible, free Gift]!
Among all the seasons of the year, Christmas is distinctively one of gift-giving. A gift is something given voluntarily to show favor toward someone, something bestowed or acquired without any particular effort by the recipient or without its being earned.
A gift is never something forced upon the intended receiver, or it ceases to be a gift in the real sense of the word.
Paul calls Jesus God’s “unspeakable” gift.
Some today obviously take the word “unspeakable” in the opposite sense of Paul’s meaning. Thus “Happy Holidays” has replaces “Merry Christmas” in many places.
Which leads to this thought – The Unopened Gift.
Many people cannot see Christ for Christmas. They forget the Savior in the season. Their thoughts are more concerned with what is on the dinner table than the events of the stable.
Since Jesus is a gift, He can be refused. God never violates our human will.
This message of “The Unopened Gift” actually goes back 2000+ years to a monarch named Herod. In Matthew 2, King Herod is greatly concerned that some baby is to be born who will become king. When his attempts to find this baby failed, he ordered all male children in Bethlehem under 2 years of age to be put to death. Herod, because of jealousy, never opened God’s gift of love to him. Eventually he suffered an emotional disturbance and died an untimely death. Others such as Pilate, King Agrippa, Scribes and Pharisees (the religious leaders) all left unopened this precious gift of love, forgiveness, and acceptance.
Around the world during this season, this gift of Jesus Christ is being celebrated, cursed, honored, dishonored, accepted, and rejected.
Right here in Toledo, many who know about this gift will continue on in their sins, lost in their troubled world of doubt, fear, guilt, and sadness. But to as many as receive this gift and open their heart to experience Him, to them He offers love, joy, peace, pardon, cleansing, and freedom.
For every Christian struggling with any challenge in life, Christ offers His gift which means trouble has an end.
God does not cease to give because we refuse to accept, and He does not cease to give even if His gifts are not used to the best advantage.
The gift of Jesus is better than all the other celebrations of Christmas.
What gift of His to you have you failed to open? …His love, acceptance, forgiveness, peace, healing, deliverance, or salvation?
