Appeal to Heaven: Politics, Culture & the Media: Merry Christmas: The entry of Jesus Christ into Human History

Merry Christmas: The entry of Jesus Christ into Human History

Merry Christmas! May the Lord Jesus
Christ be at the center of your celebrations this holiday season. Truly
truly Christmas is all about Jesus Christ.

Does the date really matter? Not
really. Are some of the Christmas traditions rooted in paganism? Yes
they are. Yet despite those concerns, this Christmas can and is all
about Jesus Christ in my heart. It should be the same for you. Set new
traditions and new standards within your home, to make Jesus Christ the
center of your Christmas celebration. There is nothing wrong with
that. There is nothing pagan about that.

In the Bible God taught us to observe
days of thanksgiving to remind ourselves how God has shown us love and
mercy. Feast dates were instituted by the nation of Israel to remind
them of the moments in history when God had helped them, like the exodus
from Egypt. There isn't anything wrong with using the calendar year to
keep our hearts and minds centered on Christ.

Christ is great. Christ is the real
deal. We need to make sure we never forget, and always focus deeply on
Jesus Christ. We humans are people of habit. When we get in the habit
of recalling Jesus in this time, we can keep him front and center.

God came into human history. He suited
up in the form of a person, Jesus Christ, to save his people. He went
on a rescue mission to save humanity.

There was no hope before Jesus Christ,
there was only sin and the rule of evil. Evil has destroyed our planet.
It's given birth to every horror imaginable: child sex slavery,
starvation, diseases, abortion, genocides perpetrated by secular
dictators, divorce, broken families, wars of greed and wealth, racism,
sexism, violence against those with differing views, and even the horror
of the genocide of entire races of people. Think of the Jews during
World War II, the people of Cambodia during the genocide, and millions
of Africans during the Rwandan civil war.

Many get so upset when Christians say
that the world is an evil place. They seem to think there is no
evidence. Yet there is so much evidence all around us! Have they not
lived in the terrible 20th century? They have, but they are blind.
They have their secular humanist glasses on. Many today can't see past
the borders of the United State's wealth and affluence. Despite their
own propensity to bash and mock the American way of life, they live in a
cocoon of safety provided by it. Despite the rhetoric, the problem of
sin and evil is obvious.

God didn't make those things. We did
those things. God gives us the choice. He lets us choose how to live.
Do we do good or do evil? Most today choose passive selfishness. And
apathy is the same thing as doing nothing. It's not helpful. Some
choose good though. They're the ones constantly mocked on television,
internet, and newspapers. They're labeled as crazies for standing for
things like religious freedom, conscientious objection, faith lived in
public life, or standing for Christian sexual ethics. They're even
mocked for praying.

Jesus Christ came into the world to save
people like us, lost, self-destructive, addictive, selfish,
consumerist, and given to random sexual encounters at bars on Friday
night. We've prostituted ourselves at bars, at parties with friends, to
people we hardly know, just for the fun of it. How deep is our moral
confusion, how inexhaustible is it? Yet Jesus came for people like us.
He came to save us who go from divorce to divorce, for us who give
ourselves to every stranger we catch feelings for. He even came to save
the LGBTQ activists celebrating their sinful behavior in a parade, who
spat on a Christian minister who accidentally walked too close to the
procession. I saw a graphic describing the evolution of gay rights, it
said: 1990 - we want tolerance. 2000 - we want equality. 2015 - bake
the cake bigot! And the graphic showed a rainbow colored gun pointed to
the head of the baker. Oh how the oppressed have become the
oppressors. Yet Jesus came to save us who oppress the innocent. Jesus
came to save us who abused and mocked the gay community. Jesus came to
save those lost within the gay community. He came for us all, and we
would only turn to him.

He came to save a culture that considers
ministers less than scum, and Caitlyn Jenner as heroic. He came to
save those who were actively in rebellion against everything he stood
for. Jesus came to save us, the ones lost in sin.

The message of Jesus Christ is that it's
never too late. You're never too far gone. You're still completely
open to the chance of calling out to Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of
all sin, to turn from your old ways and embrace the way of holiness.

Sin has destroyed our world. Sin has
destroyed us in many ways, some more than others. Yet the most terrible
situation of sin is that whenever we do evil and live in these awful
ways, we sin against God himself. God understands perfectly, right from
wrong. He knows all the right ways to live. And he's told us those
ways. Yet we didn't listen. We mocked the Bible, despite how history
had hung around it. We mocked the Christian faith, despite how our
country was founded on it's precepts. I've done those things
personally. I was once the chief mocker of the Christian view. But now
I'm an advocate. I sinned against God himself, the creator of the
universe. Have you done the same? Have you contributed to the evil
state of our world?

If so, it's not over for you. It
doesn't matter what you've done. Have you had an abortion? Jesus will
remove that sin. Have you engaged in homosexuality? Jesus will remove
that sin. Have you hurt your family? Jesus will remove that sin. Have
you stolen from others? Jesus will remove it. Have you been lazy and
selfish all your life? Jesus will free you from that. Have you raped
someone? Jesus will remove that sin. Have you been hateful? Jesus
will remove that too. Have you killed someone? Jesus will remove that
sin too. Have you hated God and mocked his name? Jesus will forgive
that sin too. He will make you white as snow, gifted in his
righteousness, and set you on a new path of repentance from all evil.
He will change you into a person who lives in holiness. He will wash
away all your sins and give you new birth into a living hope.

This incredible sage began about 2,000
years ago in a little town in the middle east. A baby boy was born in a
manger because there wasn't any room at the motel. Isn't it ironic
that the one who made the world from nothing couldn't find a hotel room?
Much less a hospital for a safe birthing procedure!

We've all heard of the wise guys who
showed up right? I imagine they were quite perplexed for some time.
Maybe they had dreams about the birth of a special person who would
change the world. I've often had strange dreams that leave me wondering
for days. Maybe they dismissed those dreams as simply the odd
clamorings of a human mind. Until one of them noticed a bright star.
Perhaps he had seen it in a dream. And he started to follow. And the
others followed. There they found the new born Jesus Christ.

Could they have comprehended the
mystery? I doubt they understood fully. They probably looked down on
the baby and thought: "I wonder what this could mean?" Yet I bet there
was also an incredible sense of awe, though they didn't quite understand
the awe, they were compelled within to worship this child as their
Lord. Amazing, isn't it?

It isn't always easy to fully
comprehend. I still have my doubts at times. I think about the Bible,
the life of Jesus Christ and the current state of the world... and I
wonder to myself: What is all this? Does it really make sense? How can
the birth of one man, God, and his life, death, and resurrection free
me from sin? How can it give me eternal life? Why this way? Why not
another formula? Jesus Christ took my place? God's wrath for me fell
on Christ? Isn't that a bit intense? Why would God want to slaughter
me, and send me to hell if he's good and loving? I still ponder those
questions. But there is something else too: Today I'm willing to admit
that I don't fully comprehend all of it. I'm willing to be humbled by
life and circumstances to the point that I can receive it, and see it
working in my life. I'm willing to leave the door open to further
thought, while confidently trusting in Christ.

I'm a human person, I'm not God. I
can't see every angle. In fact family and friends have more than once
called me out on areas of my life that need to change. And they were
right. I can't see certain things because of my own prejudice. It's
the same way when I look at the cross of Jesus Christ. I can't perceive
the full meaning and majesty of it. Often when I look upon it my gut
reaction is to look with my old eyes and see an anachronism. But in the
Spirit, I can see the iceberg beneath the surface of the meaning of it.
I can't see all of it. But I can see more, in the Spirit.

My questions remain, but so does my
faith. I've put my trust in Jesus Christ. He is my savior. Do I
understand every verse and every passage? No I don't. Do I see the
work of Jesus Christ in my life? You bet I do. Do I feel the
connection to him? Yes I do. Do I sense a greater implication in the
mystery of his life, death, and resurrection? Yes, yes, yes I do.

I don't understand all the Bible. But I
trust every word of it. And I'm willing to put the Bible above my own
opinions. The Bible is right and if I disagree with something in the
Bible guess whose wrong? I am. You are. God's word is true, time will
show it to be true.

The mystery of Jesus Christ changed the
world forever. If I can't perceive the fullness of it, that's a Justin
problem, that's not God's problem and I don't need every single detail
to make an informed decision for reasonable faith in a reasonable God
who has reasonably saved me from a just penalty for my own iniquity.

God came into human history. Emmanuel
means "God with us." God came. He lived a perfect life. He went to
the cross for us. He died for us. He was bodily resurrected for our
salvation. He came to perfect us. Jesus declared victory over death
when he bodily resurrected. Jesus Christ is alive today, resurrected
and glorified seated in authority at the right hand of God the Father.

And in the future he will present us to
God the Father in perfect holiness, and present to us a perfect
reality. A reality with no more sin, death, and misery. No more death!
I've been working in nursing homes for months now serving there, and
I've seen the horror of death. And something about it seems wrong.
Death is wrong, death should not be.

Death is a disease and Jesus Christ is the cure.

So God the Father will remake reality
itself a mystery called the coming of the Kingdom of God. He will build
a new Earth and a new universe freed from the plagues of death and sin.
There we will live with God forever in peace, joy, and unending life.
Is it really so unbelievable? I don't think so. God made the
universe. We messed it up. He's given us a chance for redemption. We
receive it, stand as pillars of it in this temporal universe and then
when we pass through the shadow of death (physical death) we will live
eternally is a recreated universe where death has no place. That works
for me.

I hope it works for you too. It's the
truth about everything. It's the hidden formula of life, behind all the
piffy doctrines of humanism, naturalism, and the false realities of
this world. None of them make sense, they don't add up, and they don't
adequately interpret the observable universe. Christianity does in fact
adequately explain all facets of life: origin of life, meaning of life,
morality of life, and the destiny of humanity and the universe.
Origin, meaning, morality and destiny. Test and observe. Naturalism
can't touch that. It's garbage, half-baked presuppositions based on
false beliefs.

Despite the secular revolution in our
country, Christians are pushing back. They are appealing to heaven, to
God, to change our nation. God is answering those prayers. Jesus
Christ is the center of life. He is the center of all we do as
Christians. I urge you to use this holiday time to delve a few steps
closer to the mystery of his life and his gift to us, his chosen
people.

Focus on Jesus Christ this Christmas, he
is truly the savior of the world. We don't seem to fully understand
how much he's done for us, but that's OK, we can praise him and worship
him anyway. Over time we will grow closer and closer to the wonderful
savior. Amen.