Oh! The Love of Christ

Christmas doth approach.

It's a season of glad tidings.

It's a season of flashing lights, gift-giving, food-cooking, family-gathering, tree-trimming, carol-singing, sled-riding and church play-acting.

It's a season where people take time out of their busy, self-consumed schedules to be generous.

During my childhood, it seemed to be a time where everyone was all of a sudden so happy and caring and people would be filled with excitement.

At least, this is the commercial, money-making meaning of the holiday--including the cloy plays and movies which portray the Nativity Scene as picturesque, beautiful and tranquil; something you would want to put in a snow globe.

Well, none of that is what Christmas is all about.

Christmas is about Christ and God's immeasurable love for His creation.

Christmas is about God loving us so much that He would send His only begotten son--1/3 of Himself--down to a sinful, impure, miserable earth to redeem a miserable, hopeless and lost people.

Christmas is about remembering the love of Christ. How deep it is. How wide it is. How great it is.

It's a great love; the same love which should be rooted so deeply in Christians that the atmosphere changes when we enter a room; that bonds are broken and captives set free; that we triumph in spiritual warfare; that we maintain consistent intimacy with Christ; that we are united as believers; that God's Kingdom may be established through His church.

Is there anything wrong with celebrating Christmas?

Not at all.

Is it wrong to let the people in your life know how much you love and appreciate them?

Of course not.

Is it wrong to do this one day out of the year and turn it into a colossal commercial conundrum?

I believe so.

Because the love of Christ can't be bought or sold. None of us earned it, but it's by grace we have been saved. It's by grace that we are redeemed. Nothing we could ever do--EVER--will guarantee us earning our salvation. But it is the matchless, amazing love of Christ that sets us free from damnation.

And once we experience such a love, we should share it. We should exude it. We should live, eat, breathe and sweat it.

There's so much I could say but can't say at the same time. I'm still learning about the love of Christ--we'll always be learning about it. But when that revelation hits that He loves us--really, truly, absolutely, without a doubt loves us and we come to truly, absolutely, without a doubt love Him--it feels good.

It makes you want to be generous at all times.

It makes you want to forgive others.

It makes you want to smile.

It makes you want to dance, run, shout and sing!

It makes you want to cry with tears of joy.

It gives you the strength to love other people, even the ones who make it hard for people to love them.

Through the love of Christ, we see people as Christ sees them.

Through realization of the human, sinful condition, we feel pity for lost souls.

That's why we seek them. The genuine love of Christ gives us no choice.

If we love a person, we won't push them in front of a speeding truck.

That's what hell is...a speeding truck.

The love of Christ compels us to be better; not just on Dec. 25, but every single day we are blessed with breath.

"And I pray that you, being rooted and established in love, may have power, together with all the Lord's people, to grasp how wide and long and high and deep is the love of Christ."~ Ephesians 3:18 (TNIV)