Do you remember the wonder of Christmas? The excitement you felt as a child when the day was approaching and yet seemed to take ‘forever’ to arrive?
Then finally you are sent to bed on Christmas Eve and somehow the next minute you are awake and jumping out of bed with joy? I hope you do.
For me it was the best day of the year.
As the years passed, I often wondered why the joy of Christmas slowly faded until it just became another day.
Then an amazing thing happened - my joy was restored when my eyes were opened to the truth behind the Christmas story!
You see I knew ‘about’ Jesus, the God child born in a manger, but I did not ‘know’ Jesus until I decided to search for the truth about life myself.
I grew up believing that Jesus was God’s son, but was this truth?
So I bought a Bible and began to read about the life of Jesus. Slowly he became real to me, and I knew that he was “the way, the truth and the life” - the only way to the Father.
The Bible says “Christ is the visible image of the invisible God. He existed before God made anything at all and is supreme over all creation.” (Colossians 1:15).
I had to know more about this Christ, whose birth we celebrate at Christmas, but already my joy had returned.
While here on Earth Jesus said this: “For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, so that everyone who believes in him will not perish but have eternal life”.
So I had to make a decision; believe in Jesus or not - choose eternal life or not.
I chose life and will never regret the best decision I ever made.
My prayer for you this Christmas is that you find the joy in it. Look to God’s child who was born in a manger, grew to walk this Earth, died to bring you back to God and now sits at the right hand of God.
He desires a relationship with you, not just an acknowledgement of his existence.
Get to ‘know’ him and experience joy!
~ Contributed by Terry Hargreaves of Ignite Life Church Deniliquin, on behalf of the Combined Churches of Deniliquin.
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