I love milk chocolate covered turtles. Oh, the chocolate, the nuts, and the gooey caramel center. I can almost taste one melting in my mouth right now, can’t you! Without all the delicious ingredients in the layers of a chocolate turtle, you wouldn’t have the delectable experience of eating a chocolate turtle.
We Must Experience Jesus
Our relationship with Jesus resembles the way we experience eating a chocolate turtle. We can hear about Jesus. We can imagine what he looks like and we can study his life. However, until we choose to break through the outer layer in our mind and experience his heart and character, we can’t fully experience his abundant love, grace, forgiveness, mercy, power, blessings, and favor.
It took me over thirty years to understand that it was my responsibility to pursue and grow a personal relationship with Jesus every day. Although I had accepted him into my heart at seven, I was never taught that I was responsible for growing my relationship with him. When I realized that I needed to hold Christ’s hand all day, and I committed to truly getting to know him personally, my mind, heart, spirit, and life began a major transformation.
Christ is Our Second Chance
When God sent Jesus to earth to live among us, he opened His heavens to us. Jesus is the essence and access of God’s love, joy, peace, and all his other attributes in us. In Christ, we have hope, healing, love, and transforming restoration. The origin and spirit of Christmas is Christ. He is our gift of a second chance from God.
The unfailing, unconditional, and relentless love of God, through Christ, is the essence of the spirit of Christmas. No matter how the world or the enemy has tried to re-identify Christmas by excluding the word Christmas or by commercializing it, the love, hope, joy, peace, and healing of Christmas can never be altered or extinguished. Christ will never change.
Christ-mas is All Year Long
Many people want to have the spirit of Christmas all year long. The truth is, once you have Jesus living in you, you have the opportunity to walk with him and to dwell in his Christ-essence all year. As his disciple, you never live outside of the spirit of Christmas.
The decorations, the music, and the gifts are not what makes Christmas. It’s our loving Father God’s gift of Jesus Christ, his Son, to us. It’s our ability to reunite with them now and forever. It’s our privilege to live in this broken earth in our imperfect human condition in Christ’s love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, gentleness, faithfulness, grace, forgiveness, and mercy. Christmas is the celebration of Christ’s birth and the sparkle it ignites in all mankind. It’s our promise and hope.
Choose Jesus this Christmas
We are often reminded in the Bible to remember the loving faithfulness and goodness of God. As we celebrate the season of Christmas, we must remember that the loving essence and reason for this special time of year originated from God through Christ Jesus. God’s gift of Jesus to us became our opportunity to dwell with God on this broken earth and to share his gift of salvation to others. Keep Jesus as the essences of your Christmas season and let him flow his love, hope, and light through you! Merry Christmas to Jesus and to You!
Every good and every perfect gift is from above, and cometh down from the Father of the heavenly lights, who is does not change like shifting shadows. James 1:17 NIV
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