DO YOU CELEBRATE CHRISTMAS?

Do I celebrate Christmas? If you mean do I celebrate December 25^th as the birthday of the Lord Jesus, I say no. There is no religious significance to December 25^th since there can be little doubt the Lord was not born on that day. However I do celebrate the fact that the Lord Jesus Christ was born in the flesh. I celebrate that Christ came in the flesh to undo everything Adam did to me in the flesh. I celebrate that Christ was born in the flesh so He could establish righteousness in the flesh and die in the flesh as my Substitute.

On December 25^th I will enjoy time with family and open the gifts that we have for each other. Every day I celebrate the miracle that God sent His Son in the flesh to be my Representative and my Savior! Why confine celebrating such a glorious gift to only one day a year?

So great is the depravity of unregenerate man that, although there is nothing that he needs more than the gospel, there is nothing that he desires less.

Pastor Scott Richardson

THE DEATH OF A BELIEVER

We always sorrow when a loved one dies. We sorrow at the loss of their presence and companionship. Our sorrow is for us but not for them if they know the Lord. When a believer dies they are immediately in the presence of the Savior. To be absent from the body is to be present with the Lord (II Cor. 5:8). When a believer dies they get great gain (Phil. 1:21). A believer leaves this world and trades corruption for incorruption, sorrow for joy, and faith for sight. And while we who are left behind are in very real sorrow for a time, our comfort is that our Lord is touched with the feeling of our infirmity and will comfort our hearts with grace that is sufficient for our grief.

HE THAT HATH THE SON HATH LIFE

It has been (for centuries) a great temptation to talented men to spend their time studying, arguing and quarreling over doctrine and future events, when they would have been better employed and more greatly used of God in preaching the gospel of our Lord. It certainly does not harm us to sharpen our minds, to look into the mysteries of God, to inquire into that which is written (revealed and unrevealed) but our powers are limited, our gifts are limited, our time is limited. Let us sound a clear note concerning that which God has made known without a doubt! “He that hath His Son hath Life; He that hath not the Son of God hath not life.” (I John 5:12)

A man can be saved and not know whether he is Pre-Post-or A-Millennium, but a man cannot be saved who does not know Christ Jesus. A man can be saved without a full knowledge of T.U.L.I.P., but he cannot be saved without a love for Christ Jesus. A man can be saved who refuses the Lordship of Elders, but he cannot be saved who refuses the Lordship of Christ Jesus. A man can be saved who does not enter into the rest of a Sabbath or special days, but a man cannot be saved who has not ceased from his labors and entered the rest of Christ Jesus.