Tuesday, December 22, 2009

Imagine a world without Christmas...


We have the grandkids over today. It's great chaos and great fun. It's very loud. Am I getting old? But I am thinking this morning, as we watch Santa Claus 3 with the grandkids, what would the world be like without Christmas? What would our world be like in 2009 if Jesus had never been born?
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Imagine no Christmas. Jesus never born. The end of the year with no good news to celebrate, no gifts given to celebrate God's gift to us. Imagine a world that never experienced God's love in the amazing gift of God in flesh. Imagine lives without hope, without God's love a reality, without a promise of life, without so much.
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The world would be an terrible place to live without Christmas. No savior, no hope, no promise, no evidence of God's love. What would it be like? I can only imagine a horrible dark and sad world. The bible makes clear we live out of what's in our hearts. If there was no one in the world walking in love, in hope, how would we treat one another? Who would have built the hospitals? Who would have started the universities? What would morality look like? As I think this out to its conclusion it's clear that a world without God's entrance into it would have been hell itself. You wouldn't have to imagine hell, you would already be there. A world without love and kindness for one another. A world without hope or a reason to live. Everyone living for themselves. All of us taking care of ourselves and using everyone else to get what we want. What a horrible world that would be.
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The bible says that Jesus came at just the right time. Thinking about a world without him I cannot imagine what a sad place this would be if he hadn't come to show us his love, to die for our sins, to give us hope, a promise and eternity. Hell could not be much worse than a world without a messiah. That's just one of the reasons Christmas is so important. I'm thrilled to be in a world where the savior has come and we celebrate a new world because of his arrival and his life, his death and resurrection. It's a different world because he was here.
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Merry Christmas! The savior has come! The world will never be the same because of his arrival.
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