When we think about Christmas, we often look at it from our own perspective. This is what I want for Christmas. This is what I want Christmas to look like. This is who I want to be with for Christmas. This is what I want to do on Christmas.
Sometimes we think of Christmas from the perspective of the different characters involved in Christmas. We think of Mary, the young maiden who was so obedient that she risked her life and future to fulfill God’s plan. We think of Joseph, he fiancé, who trusted the Lord and accepted Mary despite what his mind was telling him. We think of the lowly shepherds, who although they were nothing, had the privilege of being the first to hear of the Savior’s birth. We think of the wisemen who traveled from far away lands just to honor the new born King.
Sometimes we even think of the little baby, sleeping in the manger.
But today, I want to take time to think of Christmas from perhaps the most important perspective of all. The perspective of the one who is the author and finisher of Christmas…God.
Lets start by reading the account of Christmas from the book of John.
This passage of scripture can be summarized in one single scripture, John 3:16:
For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have everlasting life.
Jesus is the Word. He was there in the beginning. He was with God. He was God. All things were made through Jesus, and without Jesus, nothing was made. In Jesus was life, and the life was the light for humanity. But in the gross darkness of this world, people failed to recognize who He was.
Jesus humbled Himself and came down to earth as a human. He lived among us, as one of us. Yet, He was full of grace and truth.
He did not come to condemn people, but to save them. Those who believe in Him receive salvation. But, those who reject Him will be condemned because they are rejecting God.
This is Christmas from God’s perspective. It is about humility, sacrifice, love and His divine plan.
Humility
First let’s focus on humility. Jesus is the King of Kings and the Lord of Lords…yet when He came to earth, he chose to come under such humble and simple circumstances. He could have been born in a magnificent palace, wrapped in clothes embroidered with gold and silver, laid in a silk lined crib…but instead he chose to be born in a stable, wrapped in rags and laid in a manger.
Why did he choose to have such humble beginnings?
So, Jesus didn’t just come for the rich, happy and prosperous people. But instead he came for ordinary people like us. He came for the poor, the brokenhearted, the captives. He came that we may have life and have it more abundantly.
Jesus chose to have a humble birth and an ordinary life, so that He could relate to us and we could relate to Him. They say, don’t judge a man until you have walked 2 miles in his shoes. Meaning, you can’t really understand or relate to someone unless you have been in their situation. So, Jesus chose to be like us, so He could better relate to us and we to him.
There was once a man who didn’t believe in God, and he didn’t hesitate to let others know how he felt about religion and religious holidays. His wife, however, did believe, and she raised their children to also have faith in God and Jesus, despite his disparaging comments.
One snowy Eve, his wife was taking their children to service in the farm community in which they lived.
They were to talk about Jesus’ birth. She asked him to come, but he refused.
“That story is nonsense!” he said. “Why would God lower Himself to come to Earth as a man? That’s ridiculous!”
So she and the children left, and he stayed home.
A while later, the winds grew stronger and the snow turned into a blizzard. As the man looked out the window, all he saw was a blinding snowstorm. He sat down to relax before the fire for the evening. Then he heard a loud thump.
Something had hit the window. He looked out, but couldn’t see more than a few feet. When the snow let up a little, he ventured outside to see what could have been beating on his window.
In the field near his house he saw a flock of wild geese. Apparently they had been flying south for the winter when they got caught in the snowstorm and couldn’t go on. They were lost and stranded on his farm, with no food or shelter. They just flapped their wings and flew around the field in low circles, blindly and aimlessly. A couple of them had flown into his window, it seemed.
The man felt sorry for the geese and wanted to help them. The barn would be a great place for them to stay, he thought. It’s warm and safe; surely they could spend the night and wait out the storm.
So he walked over to the barn and opened the doors wide, then watched and waited, hoping they would notice the open barn and go inside. But the geese just fluttered around aimlessly and didn’t seem to notice the barn or realize what it could mean for them.
The man tried to get their attention, but that just seemed to scare them, and they moved further away. He went into the house and came with some bread, broke it up, and made a bread crumb trail leading to the barn. They still didn’t catch on.
Now he was getting frustrated. He got behind them and tried to shoo them toward the barn, but they only got more scared and scattered in every direction except toward the barn. Nothing he did could get them to go into the barn where they would be warm and safe.
“Why don’t they follow me?!” he exclaimed.
“Can’t they see this is the only place where they can survive the storm?”
He thought for a moment and realized that they just wouldn’t follow a human “If only I were a goose, then I could save them,” he said out loud.
Then he had an idea. He went into barn, got one of his own geese, and carried it in his arms as he circled around behind the flock of wild geese.
He then released it. His goose flew through the flock and straight into the barn — and one-by-one, the other geese followed it to safety.
He stood silently for a moment as the words he had spoken a few minutes earlier replayed in his mind: “If only I were a goose, then I could save them!” Then he thought about what he had said to his wife earlier. “Why would God want to be like us? That’s ridiculous!”
Suddenly it all made sense. That is what God had done. We were like the geese–blind, lost, perishing. God had His Son become like us so He could show us the way and save us.
As the winds and blinding snow died down, his soul became quiet and pondered this wonderful thought. Suddenly he understood why Christ had come. Years of doubt and disbelief vanished with the passing storm. He fell to his knees in the snow, and prayed his first prayer:
“Thank You, God, for coming in human form to get me out of the storm!”
So when we look at Christmas from God’s perspective, the first thing we see is humility. God humbled Himself for oursake. I want to ask you one question…are you willing to humble yourself for God’s sake?
Now you may ask me, “What do you mean by that?” Are you willing to give Him credit for what He has done rather than seeking fame for yourself? Are you willing to bow down before God, and submit to His will rather than your own? Are you willing to admit that you need His help and can’t do everything on your own?
The humble person, when God does a miracle after prayer is not going to make sure to let everyone know, “I prayed, so it happened”…but rather his focus will be on the Lord. “The Lord is in His grace and might did it.”
The humble person, when they make a mistake or do what the know is against God’s will is not going to make excuses or turn away from God…but rather, he will go before the Lord and apologize, asking the Lord to help him.
The humble person is not going to rely solely on his own wisdom, strength, and hard-work, but rather he will ask the Lord to help him in all things big and small, recognizing that with God nothing is possible.
Sacrifice
The second thing we see when we look at Christmas from God’s perspective is sacrifice. John 3:16 says that God gave his only begotten Son. Jesus died so that we may live.
There was once a bridge which spanned a large river. During most of the day the bridge sat with its length running up and down the river paralleled with the banks, allowing ships to pass thru freely on both sides of the bridge. But at certain times each day, a train would come along and the bridge would be turned sideways across the river, allowing a train to cross it.
A switchman sat in a small shack on one side of the river where he operated the controls to turn the bridge and lock it into place as the train crossed. One evening as the switchman was waiting for the last train of the day to come, he looked off into the distance thru the dimming twilight and caught sight of the train lights. He stepped to the control and waited until the train was within a prescribed distance when he was to turn the bridge. He turned the bridge into position, but, to his horror, he found the locking control did not work. If the bridge was not securely in position it would wobble back and forth at the ends when the train came onto it, causing the train to jump the track and go crashing into the river. This would be a passenger train with many people aboard.
He left the bridge turned across the river, and hurried across the bridge to the other side of the river where there was a lever switch he could hold to operate the lock manually. He would have to hold the lever back firmly as the train crossed. He could hear the rumble of the train now, and he took hold of the lever and leaned backward to apply his weight to it, locking the bridge. He kept applying the pressure to keep the mechanism locked. Many lives depended on this man’s strength.
Then, coming across the bridge from the direction of his control shack, he heard a sound that made his blood run cold. “Daddy, where are you?” His four-year-old son was crossing the bridge to look for him. His first impulse was to cry out to the child, “Run! Run!” But the train was too close; the tiny legs would never make it across the bridge in time. The man almost left his lever to run and snatch up his son and carry him to safety.
But he realized that he could not get back to the lever. Either the people on the train or his little son must die. He took a moment to make his decision. The train sped safely and swiftly on its way, and no one aboard was even aware of the tiny broken body thrown mercilessly into the river by the onrushing train. Nor were they aware of the pitiful figure of the sobbing man, still clinging tightly to the locking lever long after the train had passed.
They did not see him walking home more slowly than he had ever walked: to tell his wife how their son had brutally died.
Now if you comprehend the emotions which went this man’s heart, you can begin to understand the feelings of our Father in Heaven when He sacrificed His Son to bridge the gap between us and eternal life.
As we read earlier, the bible says in John 3:16, “For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life.” Jesus did not have to let the Roman soldiers arrest Him, he chose to. Jesus didn’t have to suffer the 39 lashes from the cat of nine tails, he chose to. Jesus didn’t have to die nailed to a cross, he chose to. He chose to do all of this for us. Because he loved us. He hadn’t even seen us yet, but yet He loved us so much, that He gave His life for us. Imagine going through all that Jesus went through knowing that you didn’t really have to. You could stop it whenever you wanted to. Imagine knowing ahead of time exactly what was going to happen and then allowing it to happen. I mean that is real love.
And Jesus knew what was going to happen to him before it happened, and how much he was going to suffer. He knew that the Roman soldiers were going to arrest him and they were going to beat him, and they were going to spit on his face and pull the hairs from his beard. Jesus knew that the soldiers were going to then whip him 39 times with the cat of nine tails. And Jesus knew that after that, the soldiers would make a crown out of thorns and put it on his head and as they put it on his head, he knew that the thorns would cut into his scalp. Imagine, we complain about a little splinter, and Jesus had a crown of thorns pushed down on his head. And Jesus knew that the soldiers would not stop at that, they would force him to carry a heavy wooden cross for a long distance up a hill. And when he got to the top of the hill, they would takes nails and nail his hands and feet to this cross. And then they would hang him up to die. And Jesus knew, that even then the soldiers would not be satisfied, they would take a spear and pierce his side. Jesus was a real person, he was flesh and blood like all of us, and he knew he would feel all the pain and suffering. Jesus knew all of this was going to happen to him. But He willingly gave the ultimate sacrifice…his life…so that we may obtain salvation. Jesus could have stopped it, the Bible says he could have called out and an army of angels would have come to his rescue, but he didn’t. He didn’t because he knew that by his dying, that was the only way we, as people could be reconciled to God. And he knew that he had to take the whipping from the cat of nine tails because in the bible it says “through his stripes we are healed.” Each of the lashes he suffered was so that we might be healed of our diseases.
After all of this suffering, Jesus died. But death could not contain Him and 3 days later, He rose up again. And now all who believe in Him will not perish but will have everlasting life.
Jesus died so that we may live.
So when we look at Christmas from God’s perspective, the second thing we see is sacrifice. God sacrificed Himself for oursake. I want to ask you one question…are you willing to sacrifice for God’s sake?
Now you may ask me, “What do you mean by that?” Are you willing to do His will rather than your own? Are you willing to set other things aside and make time for Him? Are you willing to risk embarrassment and alienation to follow Him?
The sacrificial person will study when God says study, will work when God says work, will stay when God says stay even though his own mind is telling him, “If I put aside my studies, work or just go, I will do great exploits for God.” Sacrifice is not about doing great things for God, it is about doing God’s will.
The sacrificial person will make time to pray, read his Bible and attend church even when he would rather sleep, there are other more fun things he can be doing or he simply just doesn’t feel like it.
The sacrificial person will tell the truth even if it means he may lose the job or not even get it to begin with. He will follow and obey God’s commands even when it is not the popular thing to do and will make them stick out in a crowd.
Love
The third thing we see when we look at Christmas from God’s perspective is love.
What is the greatest love possible? The Bible tells us in John 15:13, "Greater love has no one than this, than to lay down one’s life for his friends.” And that is exactly what Jesus did. He laid down His life for us. Even before we knew Him.
It seems that in this rural mountain community there was a school that no teacher was able to handle. When a young man fresh out of college applied for the job, the school board members laughed. But he begged for a chance, and got it.
On the first day of school the new teacher suggested that the students make the rules. He wrote on the chalkboard as the pupils called out: “No stealing. No cheating. No swearing.” Soon they had 10 rules on the board.
“Now, said the teacher, a law is no good unless there’s a penalty attached. What will be the penalty?” “Ten stripes across the back with no coat on,” was the reply. All went well for a few days until Big Tom found that someone had stolen his lunch. An investigation revealed the thief to be Jim, a small 10-year-old boy from a very poor home. When the teacher asked him to take his coat off, the boy was very embarrassed. He had no shirt, and only a string held up his trousers over his bony body.
“Why don’t you wear a shirt, Jim?” the teacher asked. “I have only one shirt, and my mother is washing it today,” the boy explained. “My father died, and we are very poor. For two days we have had no food. That’s why I stole Tom’s lunch. I’m sorry, but I was so hungry.”
Quietly the teacher took off his own coat and shirt. He bent down and handed Jim the beating stick and said, “Go ahead.”
Jim dropped the stick and put his hand around the teachers neck. “Teacher, I’ll love you till I die for taking my licking for me! I’ll love you forever!”
Unfortunately, our response is generally not like Jim. We do not embrace Jesus. Instead, we beat him with our lies, with our hatred, with our laziness, with our disobedience.
We have each broken God’s rules, but Jesus took our punishment for us. Isaiah 53:5 tells us, that He was wounded for our transgressions, He was bruised for our iniquities.
He suffered the death, which was ours, that we might receive the life that was His. With His stripes we are healed. May our response be “I’ll love You forever!”
Human love is generally a response to the conditions and circumstances around us. We love because someone pleases us or because they’re good looking or because they make us laugh. By contrast, God loves us because that’s the kind of God He is. Period. Nothing in us causes Him to love us.
One of the clearest passages in the New Testament on God’s love is Romans 5:6-10:
6 For when we were still without strength, in due time Christ died for the ungodly. 7 For scarcely for a righteous man will one die; yet perhaps for a good man someone would even dare to die. 8 But God demonstrates His own love toward us, in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us. 9 Much more then, having now been justified by His blood, we shall be saved from wrath through Him. 10 For if when we were enemies we were reconciled to God through the death of His Son, much more, having been reconciled, we shall be saved by His life.
There is no reason for God to love us. You are not a naturally lovable person and neither am I. Sin has infected our lives so much that it has distorted even the parts we think are beautiful. Sin “uglyfies” everything it touches.
And so, there is no reason for God to love us, except this: That’s the kind of God He is. He loves us because God is love and He can’t help loving us even when we are His enemies. His love is greater than our sin and He loves us in spite of our sin. God loves us in spite of our unloveliness. We can count on His love because it doesn’t depend on anything we say or do.
God is love. have you ever seen those bumper stickers on cars that say, “Love is God?” They have it backwards. Love is not God. We are not to run after love and serve love. In fact, if you do that, you will find that you may end up loving one person, but you will end up hurting many many more. Instead, the Bible tells us that God is love. If we run after God, love will come automatically and this love is all encompaning love.
So when we look at Christmas from God’s perspective, the third thing we see is love. Jesus so loved each one of us that He died for us. I want to ask you one question…are you willing to love God back?
Now you may ask me, “What do you mean by that?” Remember how we went through the Biblical definition of love?
4Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. 5It is not rude, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. 6Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. 7It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres. 8Love never fails.
I Corinthians 13:4-8.
The loving person will be patient with God. He will wait for God’s timing and not give up on God because the answer to prayer is slow in coming.
The loving person will not be self-seeking with God. He will not only pray when he needs something. “God help me get some sales.” “God I didn’t study, but help me pass my exam.” “God give me a new cell phone.” He will also remember God even when he doesn’t need a thing. “God I just want to say I love you.”
The loving person will always trust in God. He will not give up on God jus because he doesn’t get what he was asking for. He will continue to trust that God is in control and knows best.
Divine Plan
All of this, humility, sacrifice and love leads us to the last and perhaps most important part of Christmas from God’s perspective. And that is His divine plan. Christmas is about God’s divine plan. His plan to save the earth. To reconcile humans back to Him.
In the beginning of time, God created the Heavens and the Earth. He created the trees and the plants, the birds and the beasts. He created the sun and the moon. He created man and woman.
God created man and woman (Adam and Eve) in His image. He created them as intelligent, living beings with whom He could fellowship. However, He did not want humans to worship Him out of compulsion, but out of love. He did not make robots. He gave humans free will. He gave man and woman choice.
In the beginning, God’s creation was without sin. And it would have remained that way, were it not for man’s choice.
God had given man and woman reign over all that was in the Garden of Eden. They were allowed to eat and drink, play and rest, and make merry. The Lord only gave them one rule: “[O]f the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat, for in the day that you eat of it you shall surely die.” Genesis 2:17.
From the beginning, God set before man a choice of whether to obey Him, love Him and live – or to disobey Him, not love Him and die. Unfortunately, Adam and Eve, chose to rebel again God and to disobey Him. They ate that fruit.
All men and women were given the knowledge of good and evil, and thus sin and death entered the Earth.
And there became like a wall between God and man. A wall of sin. We all know that it is our sin that keeps us away from God.
From the time Adam and Eve disobeyed God and fell into sin, God had a plan for the salvation of man. He had a plan to reconcile His creation back to Himself. Approximately 2000 years ago, God sent Jesus into this world to fulfill that plan. “For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have everlasting life.” John 3:16.
The Bible clearly states that it takes blood to pay for sin. “[W]ithout shedding of blood there is no remission.” Hebrews 9:22. Both Biblically and historically we can see that our ancestors sacrificed animals in order to seek atonement for their sins. Every lamb, bullock, heifer, goat, turtle dove and pigeon offered in the Old Testament times on the altar pictured this: that man, a guilty sinner, must have some innocent one to shed his blood to pay for one man’s sins.
Holding true to this law requiring the shedding of blood for the remission of sins, the Father sent Jesus into this world as a sacrificial lamb. See John 1:29. Jesus was sinless. He was without fault. There was no “reason” for Him to be nailed to the cross. Yet, He allowed Himself to be hung on the cross, giving His life for the atonement of the sins of this world. He humbled Himself and became the sacrificial lamb, for the remission of the sins of those who will believe in Him. He nailed our sins to the cross “by the sacrifice of Himself.”
Some say one can only attain Heaven by following a certain set of rules, dos and don’ts. Others say one can only be saved if he or she cancels out his or her sins by good works. But the Bible says, “Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, and you will be saved.” Acts 16:31.
What does it mean to believe on the Lord Jesus Christ? It means believing that He came to this earth, He died for our sins, He rose to life again, and He is alive. It means believing that Jesus is the one and only God. But, you are not just to believe the truth about Jesus; you are to believe on Him, that is, depend upon Him, risk Him, trust Him; and when you do, you are saved.
I have asked you a lot of questions today, but the final question I want to ask you is: This Christmas are you ready to accept God’s divine plan into your life? Are you ready to believe on the Lord Jesus Christ?
wo awesome this time u come with bunch of stuf nice i liked it awesome