Christmas reminds us that Christ has come to redeem the World. Once a believer recognizes Christ as their Savior, they begin their journey to becoming a disciple. Advent begins the Christian calendar and should begin the church’s teaching that should lead them on that journey. Follow me through the seasons as we cover the major teachings of the church.
Children are beginning to think about Christmas as stores are ramping up their Christmas advertising. Yet Christmas is more than getting presents. It is a celebration of when God gave us the greatest gift of all. Advent is a time when we begin to prepare our hearts for celebrating when Christ came to save us and begins on December 3rd this year. I have an Advent booklet available to help parents teach their children about Christmas. It has a short Scripture for each day of Advent which helps to remind us of what Christmas is about and includes pictures that go with the daily Scriptures that the kids can color, cut out, and glue to construction paper. It provides a time the family can get together and learn from God’s Word and hopefully will become a regular family practice all year round. The pictures can be hung on the Christmas tree or on cords strung around the room. It is an electronic file that I would be glad to E-mail to you free and can be printed off. E-mail me at neighborhoodministriesnwoh@gmail.com and use heading “Advent booklet”.
Hope For Our Community- Because Christ lives, there is hope for our community. While liberal proponents complain that churches provide no benefit to the community and merely take up valuable space that could be used by tax paying businesses, churches provide a valuable resource for the community. While many liberal churches now support abortion and Gay privileges, Bible believing churches continue to uphold the value of life, the value of the rule of law, the value of the family, and the value of the individual. Bible-believing parents often have stable marriages which provide consistent training to their children in moral living which would not exist if the churches did not exist, since there are no other organizations in our society that promotes those values on the scale that the church and other religious based organizations do. Churches provide support for non-government social service agencies which provide invaluable help to those struggling which goes far beyond the sterile monetary support they get from government agencies. We are seeing the effects of the loss of Christian values in our society as killing increases, lawlessness increases, families crumble, and suicide increases. As churches are increasingly silenced, it will only get worse.
Hope for Our Family-Because Christ lives there is hope for our families. Liberal policies discourage long term commitments, especially marriage. As a result, many people never marry and many marriages end in divorce. Those who are divorced or don’t marry will often float from one relationship to another. As a result, many children grow up with unstable parenting. They may have a series of fathers, a series of mothers, or a series of both. As a result, they are subjected to a variety of values and training leaving them confused about what is right and wrong. It also leaves them subject to neglect and abuse by adult figures who don’t care about the children because they don’t plan on staying very long. In addition, with no incentive to work out problems, the adults quarrel frequently and the children are often used as pawns in their quarrels which is very destructive. On the other hand, two parents, transformed by the love of God will be committed to the marriage for the long run providing consistent training guided by Biblical principles and will be determined to raise their children to care about each other and to respect each other.
Hope for Ourself-Because Christ lives, there is hope for us. Since Christ is interceding for us, we can have hope of eventual relief from our trials and receive eternal rest. Since we also have the Holy Spirit within us to teach us and guide us, we do not have to face our trials and temptations alone and can rise above them. In addition, Christ has created the church to encourage us and help us as we go through trials. While God is with us, it is sometimes hard to feel His presence and we need to see His presence in the flesh to let us know that we are not alone.
First Sunday- God With Us-Christmas reminds us that Jesus left heaven and came to earth to save us. (He didn’t have to, He did it for us) We have hope because He knows our trials. He lived among us and experienced all the temptations we faced, but did not sin. He suffered and died for our sins, setting us free from the power of sin and death so that we can break free of our sin. He rose from the grave and returned to heaven to intercede on our behalf. While we do have to suffer the consequences of our sin, we do not have to continue to suffer for our sins. Afterward, He did not leave us alone, He sent the Holy Spirit to teach us, to guide us, and to strengthen us. God is not somebody far away who doesn’t know what we face. He came down from heaven and dwells with us, an ever-present help in time of need.
I have a course on Basic Christian Beliefs for new Christians and as a refresher for long-time Christians, which is posted on Udemy.
It is available by posting the following link in your browser.
https://www.udemy.com/course/christian-celebrations/?referralCode=D706C0B4E96819B18699
This is the first in the series of previous posts and highlights
Christmas season, Advent, Christmastide, and Epiphany
Click on the links below to access those series.