JESUS CHRIST-BIRTH-CHRISTMAS
Here's a side
to the Christmas story that isn't often told: Those soft little hands,
fashioned by the Holy Spirit in Mary's womb, were made so that nails might be
driven through them. Those baby feet, pink and unable to
walk, would one day walk up a dusty hill to be nailed to a cross. That
sweet infant's head with sparkling eyes and eager mouth was formed so that
someday men might force a crown of thorns onto it. That tender body, warm and
soft, wrapped in swaddling clothes, would one day be ripped open by a spear.
Jesus was born to die.
God With Us,
Zondervan, 1989, p. 116.
God With Us,
Zondervan, 1989, p. 16.
The Christmas
message is that there is hope for a ruined humanity – hope of pardon, hope of
peace with God, hope of glory – because at the Father’s will Jesus became poor,
and was born in a stable so that thirty years later He might hang on a cross.
J.I. Packer
The
New Encyclopedia of Christian Quotations, ed. Mark Water, 2000, Baker, p. 159.
The immense step from the Babe at Bethlehem to the living,
reigning triumphant Lord Jesus, returning to earth for His own people – that is
the glorious truth proclaimed throughout Scripture. As the bells ring out the
joys of Christmas, may we also be alert for the final trumpet that will
announce His return, when we shall always be with Him.
The Life of Victory. Christianity Today, v. 39, n.
14.
All we could
ever imagine, could ever hope for, He is… He is the
Prince of Peace whose first coming has already transformed society but whose second
coming will forever establish justice and righteousness. All
this, and infinitely more, alive in an impoverished baby in a barn. That
is what Christmas means – to find in a place where you would least expect to
find anything you want, everything you could ever want.
Who can add
to Christmas? The perfect motive is that God so loved the world. The perfect
gift is that He gave His only Son. The only requirement is to believe in Him.
The reward of faith is that you shall have everlasting life.
Christmas is based on an exchange of gifts, the gift of God to man
– His unspeakable gift of His Son, and the gift of man to God – when we present
our bodies a living sacrifice.
The
Vance Havner Quote Book. Christianity
Today, v. 31, n. 18.