🎄Christmas “Reflections”? 🕯️
“From the beginning, man created…God…and said, “I will make God in my own image and likeness…and so he did…” — Genesis 1:1, 26-28; John 1:1-3 ~ NIT (New Identifier Translation).
The myriad players in the short, terrestrial playing out of the Creator’s redemption of humankind, presents an equal spectrum of responses to this Jesus of Nazareth, also known to the studied & faithful as Immanuel—God with us, and so right down to our day.
And to even these — those who should receive His Advent — too often, He, indeed looks more like us, in all our self-absorption and self-promotion, than the divine Savior & Lord that He is…and that He knew, and knows Himself to be!
The One who, as a helpless babe, entered, (yea even created!), our physical realm, was also the One who would step across ethnic, cultural, intellectual, and even religious prejudice and hypocrisy, to offer life and healing to those who had faith enough to humble themselves, and ask the real Creator to assume the throne of their lives (see: the Samaritan woman at the well, the Syro-Phoenician woman, the Roman centurion, the woman with the issue of blood, Nicodemus, others).
Without the Creator-Savior-God, as presented in the Bible, as predicted by the prophets, as announced by angels, as worshiped by shepherds and wise men, as hated by Gentile rulers and Jewish religious leaders, and as crucified, resurrected, ascended & returning…without Him enthroned upon the
heart & will of the individual’s life, Christmas is little more than an annual, self-congratulatory pat on the back, with a kind wink from the god we’ve created in our image (who looks a whole lot like the image in the mirror!).
This Christmas, may you know Him as the One who loves you enough to rescue you from yourself, and to re-create you in His image, that you then may embark — or re-embark — on an amazing journey, walking in His saving, healing, marvelous light (I John 1:1-4; Luke 2:20).
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