Has anyone asked you what do
you want for Christmas? Has
anyone ever showed you what you have already received for Christmas?
These are the gifts of Christmas from God to you.
Jesus said that He fulfilled this scripture in Luke 4:18-21.
What are the true gifts of Christmas?
Isaiah
61:1 The Spirit of the Sovereign LORD is on me, because the LORD has anointed
me to preach good news to the poor. He has sent me to bind up the
brokenhearted, to proclaim freedom for the captives and release from darkness
for the prisoners, 2 to proclaim the year of the LORD's favor and the day of
vengeance of our God, to comfort all who mourn, 3 and provide for those who
grieve in Zion-- to bestow on them a crown of beauty instead of ashes, the oil
of gladness instead of mourning, and a garment of praise instead of a spirit
of despair. They will be called oaks of righteousness, a planting of the LORD
for the display of his splendor. 4 They will rebuild the ancient ruins and
restore the places long devastated; they will renew the ruined cities that
have been devastated for generations. 5 Aliens will shepherd your flocks;
foreigners will work your fields and vineyards. 6 And you will be called
priests of the LORD, you will be named ministers of our God. You will feed on
the wealth of nations, and in their riches you will boast. 7 Instead of their
shame my people will receive a double portion, and instead of disgrace they
will rejoice in their inheritance; and so they will inherit a double portion
in their land, and everlasting joy will be theirs. 8 "For I, the LORD,
love justice; I hate robbery and iniquity. In my faithfulness I will reward
them and make an everlasting covenant with them. 9 Their descendants will be
known among the nations and their offspring among the peoples. All who see
them will acknowledge that they are a people the LORD has blessed." 10 I
delight greatly in the LORD; my soul rejoices in my God. For he has clothed me
with garments of salvation and arrayed me in a robe of righteousness, as a
bridegroom adorns his head like a priest, and as a bride adorns herself with
her jewels. 11 For as the soil makes the sprout come up and a garden causes
seeds to grow, so the Sovereign LORD will make righteousness and praise spring
up before all nations.
Have
you unwrapped your gifts from God?
1.
The first gift is Himself, God.
God is with us. Jesus gave
the good tidings to the meek. Within the package of the first gift we find all the rest.
The good news is that God is with us.
The gift is the good news in a world that is filled with the bad news
of the results of sin. The good news is that God
loves you so much that He sent his one and only son to become the
sacrifice for your sins, so that we may come to truly know who God is. He
loves you and wants to know you personally.
We will know Him, because now we can know Him who is with us.
2.
Healing is the second gift that
God gives to us today
Jesus came to bind up the brokenhearted.
Jesus
came to bandage up the broken hearts. The
lives that have been wrecked by sin. Are
you hurting or have you been hurt by someone a friend or foe, a brother a
church member? Let Jesus heal you
up. Will you come to him for his
gift of healing?
3.
Freedom is the third Gift. Jesus
came to proclaim liberty to
the captives in the world and release from the darkness. The
Jews were held in bondage to the Babylonians.
Freedom from the world and sin or any thing that would keep you from
being whom God wants you to be. You
are set free to be. Have you
claimed you freedom?
While
taking a prisoner from a Guelph, Ontario correctional center to be arraigned
on charges of attempted armed robbery, police constable John Bolton noticed a
cross around the prisoner's neck. Knowing that the man was not religious,
Bolton took a closer look. The prisoner attempted to conceal something
protruding from the top of the cross, saying it was a good-luck charm.
But Constable Bolton thought the ornament looked like a handcuff key --
and he was right. When he took the cross, he discovered that it would open
almost any set of handcuffs!
That cross had the power to set a
prisoner free -- just as the Cross of Christ which Paul preached has the power
to liberate men and women from the bondage and condemnation of the Law.
Let Jesus set you free from
prison...
4.
The fourth gift that God has given you is Time.
Jesus proclaimed the acceptable year of the Lord
to all those who would hear his message would come to know the true gifts of
Christmas. Now is the time and
today is the day of salvation. Jesus
has come so that you may have the time to receive God and know him as your
father. You have today. Open the
gift of time from God today.
5.
The fifth and last gift that God wants you to open is the gift of Joy
Jesus has come that we might be clothed with the
garments of salvation...
so that we may know the Joy of God...
Rejoice and happy in the Lord...
for he has covered us with the robe of righteousness and we have been
made acceptable to God ... We know who God is ... He is our father and we are
his children the sheep of his pasture...
He has given us the Joy of salvation that comes in this life...
Kaufmann Kohler states in the Jewish Encyclopedia that no language has
as many words for joy and rejoicing as does Hebrew. In the Old Testament
thirteen Hebrew roots, found in twenty-seven different words, are used
primarily for some aspect of joy or joyful participation in religious worship.
Hebrew religious ritual demonstrates God as the source of joy. In contrast to
the rituals of other faiths of the East, Israelite worship was essentially a
joyous proclamation and celebration. The good Israelite regarded the act of
thanking God as the supreme joy of his life.
Pure joy is joy in God as both its source and object.
The psalmist says, "Thou dost show me the path of life; in thy
presence there is fullness of joy, in thy right hand are pleasures
forevermore". (Psalm 16:11)
Have you opened your gifts
from God yet.. Why not open them today ?