Christ-mass

I'm usually excited for a lot of the Christians' holidays; Christmas and Easter topping the charts. Christmas for me is, wow. I'm giddy here just thinking of its significance. I consider Christmas, a holiday celebrating privilege, & sacrificial giving. 

John 3:16 has it that for God so loved the world that He gave... It didn't matter to Him that we knew Him not, it didn't matter to Him that His gift could very well be rejected. He didn't give heed to the what ifs, He just acted and never for once did He withdraw His gift nor withheld His affection. I realise that I need to be more like my Lord in this, cos I find myself very much asking, what if my gift isn't appreciated and very often, because of that, I end up not giving. 

Appreciated or not, my Lord gave away His precious son Jesus, to die for me. To comman die for the whole world (I love me some Nigerian English 😁). It mattered not whether the sacrifice would be acknowledged by us, this gift, how much more accept it and true to form (human nature), some didn't.

They neither acknowledged nor accepted the sacrificial gift. I mean, in a certain part of the world, there are some still awaiting this promised gift. Sigh, what a pity. I wish every one could see what I see or that I could adequately express how much love our Lord has for us. Heart pounding, bursting love that is as profound as it is real🥹

So, as we celebrate the birth of Christ let's endeavour to ponder on the significance of this birth to us at large. Be mindful about Christmas.

Peace...

 

The Believer's authority

 

“Old things have passed away.” Dear believer, do you really believe this? Do you believe this report that old things have truly passed?  Then why do you still act live like you're not in Christ? Why do you quake at the roaring of an imposter lion. Scripture makes us understand that the devil's like a roaring lion, emphasis on like. That a thing looks like something does not make it one.

This ignorance of our authority in & through Christ Jesus will be our undoing. This reminds me of an incident a few years back that gave me great insight. It had to do with condiments that remained from my cooking session–pepper and onions. I had left them in a plate in the open air to preserve them.

You might ask, how about your fridge? Well, I asked myself that question too. I'd not had a fridge for a while and so it was easy to forget that I now had a preservation system and took my normal route of preservation. Before then, I'd contemplated steaming them since they were not going to be put to use anytime soon.

Long story short, when this happened what dropped in my mind was that as believers, this is is what we do too. When we enter into God's kingdom, we've been completely saved and the old things have passed away, but we forget that. We forget that we've come into power and authority and carry on living like we used to, fearing what we once feared and generally carrying on like nothing's changed in our lives.

We forget that the kingdom life’s entirely different from the self life. We keep struggling and forget to rely on His strength. We keep doing things the usual way forgetting that Christ's made things easier for us. Labouring under the law and forgetting that we're now operating in grace.

So, that was what popped into my mind seeing those pepper and onion lying there shrivelling while all the while, they could have been chilling in the fridge, perfectly being preserved.

I dearly hope that from today, you begin to walk & operate in the authority that God has so graciously given us through His son, Jesus Christ.

God bless you.

Peace.