Friday, December 21, 2012

The Best Kept Secret of Christmas



Amazing as the incarnation, the birth of God's Son  is, the Christmas miracle doesn't end with Jesus in the stable.

When Mary heard the words of the angel Gabriel,

The Holy Spirit will come upon you, and the power of the Most High will overshadow you; and for that reason the holy Child shall be called the Son of God. Luke 1:35,

God created a precedent. Thirty some years after the announcement to Joseph's fiancée, the resurrected Christ spoke the following words to His disciples (they were actually in response to their question regarding the 'End of the World' – I guess the Mayans weren’t the only ones talking about it J):

It is not for you to know times or epochs which the Father has fixed by His own authority; but you will receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you; and you shall be My witnesses both in Jerusalem, and in all Judea and Samaria, and even to the remotest part of the earth. Acts 1:7,8

Less than two weeks after those words were spoken the amazing Christmas miracle happened again - times one-hundred-twenty! The Holy Spirit came, according to Jesus’ promise, not as a special celestial visitor for selected precious few but as a permanent resident for anyone who would believe. First it was the 120 disciples of Jesus, who overwhelmed Jerusalem with the message of repentance and God's love and forgiveness in Christ, now freely offered to everyone everywhere - regardless of age, gender, race, religion, nationality or social status. The city at the time was filled with visitors of every language and tribe.  It was a holiday season, filled with prayers, food, religious traditions and festivities probably not too much unlike our Christmas. But, ah, the surprise that God prepared for everyone that morning! As a result, about three thousand men and women became 'Bethlehem mangers' that very day. The miracle of this amazing new life - born of the Spirit of God - continues on, throughout the globe, to this day.

Christmas was never intended to be a solitary life lived by the One born in the stable. Jesus' life, death and resurrection, and His gift of the Holy Spirit to all who receive Him makes each of us a Bethlehemian stable. The Spirit-filled, the Spirit-led life is now the birth right of every child of God through faith in Christ.  

Thank God for His indescribable gift.  

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