BOOM!

Before reading this can you do me a favour? Ask the Holy Spirit to speak to you. My prayer is always that he would speak through my words, because or you and I are just wasting our time. But for some reason this morning I think it is particularly important. Something is brewing in my mind and heart, it is bubbling up, something that makes me want to shout from the roof tops! But I know that I can shout all I want, if the Holy Spirit is not in my words they will be empty, useless noise… 

As I sit next to my Christmas tree in the quite and peacefulness of the morning I can’t stop thinking about what I read and reflected on yesterday, so despite wanting to write on something new…

This is how God showed his love for us: God sent his only Son into the world so we might live through him. This is the kind of love we are talking about—not that we once upon a time loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son as a sacrifice to clear away our sins and the damage they’ve done to our relationship with God. (1 John 4:7-10)

Yesterday morning I was struck with the significance that God loves us so much that he sent his son to die!!! So that he could repair the damage we have done! This is incredible! This is the GOOD news, actually it's way better then good, it's GREAT, it's FANTASTIC, INCREDIBLE... This is what Christmas is all about, God sending his son to die, so that through his death and resurrection he would defeat sin and death, inaugurating the kingdom of God, the reconciliation of all of creation to our Maker... GUYS THIS IS BIG NEWS! Don't let the Christmas season get swept away in the flurry of buying presents, baking cookies, cooking turkeys, drinking eggnog, and having Christmas parties, without taking sometime to seriously reflect on the marvel of this GREAT news, then with these treasures stored in our hearts we can truly celebrate knowing the King of kings and the Lord of lords has arrived to save us from our own self-destruction! Praise be to my King for you alone Jesus are worthy of all that think, speak, and breath! Amen

I posted this reflection on Facebook, so you may have read this already, but I think it’s important enough for a repeat… don’t you think? 

Have you lost sight of the MIND BLOWING significance of Christmas? I know I have. And it’s not just about understanding the true meaning during this season, this GREAT news should shake up our entire lives, every season needs to be shaped and transformed by the MIND BLOWING news that God is with us, that he has sent his son to die so that he would repair all the brokenness in the world, everything from our own personal hurts to the social injustice to the damages in creation. 

Christmas has cosmic all year round significance…

Do you believe that? Are we living out of this truth?

My challenge to us this morning is not settle for the warm fuzzies and sparkles that to often dominate Christmas (not that I don’t love sparkles, because I do, I love sparkles! But Christmas is so much more, something far greater, actually Christmas has a warm fussies and sparkles that if we allow them to will completely transform our world!). 

That’s what I’m talking about TRANSFORMATION, the total transformation of the entire world, of all of creation! To us a child is born… yes a child, who is the SAVIOUR, the King of Kings, the One who sets all things right, the Healer of the nations… We were, we are on a path of complete destruction, but at just the right time God sent his Son… This is what Christmas is all about God coming to save his broken, hurting world, to set all of creation free from sin and death, reconciling all of creation to himself! 

Drink your eggnog, open your presents, and wear lots of sparkles, but let’s not settle, let’s not be robbed of the transformational power of Christmas…

Maybe you are like me and you have grown up hearing the Christmas story, singing the songs, going to a candle light service, so that the significance of the MIND BLOWING truth of Christmas has been diminished?

My prayer is that as we sing the warm fuzzy Christmas songs this year, hear the Christmas story, and light our candles that the Holy Spirit would open our minds and hearts to the miraculous truth and significance of Christmas, lets ask him to take the significance and truth of Christmas deeper then it has ever gone before, sinking into the very depths of our souls, messing us up for the entire year, may the truth set us all ablaze, transforming not only ourselves but the entire world, may the significance that God is with us bring us to our knees as we come and worship the child that has been born, the King of kings, the Lord Jesus Christ, Emmanuel …

Let this shake you up, I mean really mess with you… likely we each have our things that God wants to shake up in us, so ask him to show you what it is that he is wanting to mess you up for. 

This Christmas I am praying for revival, in me, in you, in the church, in Vancouver, in the world, in creation! God sent his Son to reconcile the world to himself, now I’m not going to settle for anything less than a full on revival! How about you? What are you asking for this Christmas?