Christmas Week

Greetings Spirit and Truth Family,

Christmas Break at school and both the Christmas and New Year’s celebrations create a wonderful time in the life of our kids and a whole lot of stress for we who are adults.  If your kids are grown and gone you might have to recollect what it was like to experience these events in your life like some of our younger families.  When we think of what Christmas has become in our nation with the commercialization of the holiday, it is no wonder we experience stress.  Families are under huge expectations to provide toys, dinners, and a picture-perfect life!  But is this real?  The truth is that toys are too expensive, dinners require a lot of work, and none of us is perfect.

We work so hard to present a picture of ourselves, our families, and even our church which presents to the world that we have it all together.  We want others to believe we have no problems!  Perfect kids, perfect marriage, perfect job, we want for nothing.  The reality is that each and every one of us is a broken human being and therefore our families have their dysfunctional moments, and our church is far from perfect.

We may be able to hide this reality from most of the world, but we cannot hide the truth from God.  We need to remind ourselves of this during this time of year.  We work so hard to be perfect that we often fall into the trap of believing our self-worth is based on how good we can be.  When things go badly and we face the challenges of everyday life such as an argument with our spouse, or children who disobey or get in trouble, we question our own value.  Then we work doubly hard to hide our problems and pretend everything is ok.  

Let me remind you of a simple truth which you already know, but which each of us needs to be reminded of almost daily.  If you were perfect, you would not need Jesus to be born in Bethlehem.  If life would truly good, God did not need to send His Son.  If the picture we attempt to present to those around us were valid, Jesus would not have needed to suffer and die on the cross.  If our own self-worth were truly based on how good we could be in this life, we would have no hope at all!

Now the truth!  We are all fallen human beings.  Sin is real and it hurts.  All families on good days face challenges.  Finances will always be a concern and no job is perfect.  Whenever two sinful human beings are in contact with each other, there will be times when we sin against each other.  We cannot become anything more than what we are on our own.  The good news is that we don’t have too!  God loved us when we were lost!  God loved us when we had nothing of value to offer Him.  He loved us then and He loves us now simply because He places value on each of us because we are who we are, not because of anything we do or fail to do.   This is called grace, God’s undeserved love!  God loved us when we were unlovable.

When Jesus came into this world it was to save us because we could not save ourselves.  He came to save us because God the Father places such value on each of us that the thought of not having us as His children was more than He could bear.  Jesus was born and endured the cross because the He could not bear the thought of life in eternity without us.  

So, in the midst of all the family dinners, presents and kids around the tree, and the stress which accompanies these, please take a moment to remember why Jesus was born in Bethlehem.  He came because God loves you!  He came because God wants you!  How valuable are you?  Jesus was born, lived, and died for you!  Let this be the one truth by which you determine your own self-worth.  You don’t have to be perfect to know you are loved and forgiven.  

God bless you and Merry Christmas,
Pastor Russ