During these days that follow Christmas, the weightiness of the birth of Jesus must remain heavy on our hearts and minds. For this is the heart of the Christian message – the birth of a Savoir and a God that takes on flesh.
This devotion by A.W. Tozer titled, Determining the Personal Meaning of Christmas, helps to clarify what specifically we must reflect on and examine within our own hearts. We are praying for God to continue using Empart in a radical away throughout Northern India and Nepal, but we are also asking God to use this ministry to encourage, sharpen and equip supporters in the West. We pray that this season is a time for increase in your relationship and fellowship with the King of Kings, our Lord and Savoir Jesus Christ.
While faith contains an element of reason, it is essentially moral rather than intellectual. In the New Testament unbelief is a sin, and this could not be so if belief were no more than a verdict based upon evidence. There is nothing unreasonable about the Christian message, but its appeal is not primarily to reason. At a specific time in a certain place God became flesh, but the transcendence of Christ over the human conscience is not historic; it is intimate, direct and personal.
Christ’s coming to Bethlehem’s manger was in harmony with the primary fact of His secret presence in the world in preincarnate times as the Light that lighteth every man. The sum of the New Testament teaching about this is that Christ’s claims are self-validating and will be rejected only by those who love evil. Whenever Christ is preached in the power of the Spirit, a judgment seat is erected and each hearer stands to be judged by his response to the message. His moral responsibility is not to a lesson in religious history but to the divine Person who now confronts him.
“Everywhere, everywhere, Christmas tonight.” But Christmas either means more than is popularly supposed or it means nothing. We had better decide.
Lord, You came as a baby in a lowly manger. But You were and are God. I bow before You.
