Is Christmas over?

Another Christmas has come and gone,

let’s think of pictures seen.

Angels’ singing of Jesus' birth

announcing peace to all the earth.

The manger just outside the town

where God’s own Son was to be found.

The child who came as Mary’s son - 

the promised, long awaited one.

We hear of Jesus wondrous birth

and sing of glorious peace on earth.

We praise the baby in the hay

and pause to celebrate the day,

But soon we pack it all away.

For one more year we put away

the trappings of that special day.

With trees and lights and treasures fair,

we put the crèche with Jesus there.

Instead 

Let’s take Him from his manger bed

and watch the holy life he led.

And  

walk with the Son of God and see Him 

die upon that cursed tree.

Then

Christmas might be just the start

of Jesus living in our hearts.

Have you come to the end of Christmas?  Should Christmas have an end? 

As we’re putting our decorations away, as we clean up the house and get things back to normal, maybe we could think of what normal should really be.

Should we leave the decorations out all year?  Should we try to duplicate that Christmas feeling?  Should Christ have a more prominent place in our day-to-day lives?  Will he?

For me, this year’s Christmas celebration is over.  It’s been an unusual one, not the most festive or the most exciting, but it did center greatly on the most important happening that has ever been seen on earth – the birth of Jesus, who came to this earth to live and to die for us, and to show us the way to The Father.  And in that, I have had an awesome reason to celebrate.

I ask myself this question; has this Christmas changed my life?  Has this Christmas changed me?  Has this season of concentrating on the birth of my Savior made a difference?  Oh I certainly think so.

Tomorrow, when I start to “undecorate” the house, I will not be putting Jesus away for another year.  This year, as I looked at Christ’s birth in a different way, I found so much more about God to worship and to love.  He will not be living in a box in the attic; He will be living in my heart.

I have been crucified with Christ and I no longer live, 

but Christ lives in me. 

The life I live in the body, I live by faith in the Son of God, 

who loved me and gave himself for me.

(Galatians 2:20)

Then the angel said to them, “Do not be afraid, for behold, I bring you good tidings of great joy which will be to all people.  For there is born to you this day in the city of David a Savior, who is Christ the Lord.  And this will be the sign to you: You will find a Babe wrapped in swaddling cloths, lying in a manger.”  
Luke 2:10-12 NKJV

Almighty power! 

Bound in tiny human flesh. 

Eternal Spirit! wrapped in time 

and fragile swaddling dress.

Beauty only dreamers dream about 

slept in a lowly stall. 

The voice that spoke the world in place, 

this night would not be heard at all. 

That dark cold manger cradled more 

than human eyes could see. 

It cradled Love, and sacrifice, and life eternally. 

It cradled Hope when hope is gone 

and cradled joy without a cost,

because the baby lying here has come to save the lost. 

He came to be our 

Light giver,

Life saver, 

Creator and King. 

He is our Shepherd, 

Our Savior, 

Our Water, 

Our Bread. 

He is LOVE gently placed in a rude manger bed, 

and He proved that our God would do just what He said. 

So, this Christmas let’s see Him, 

see just who He is -  

that babe in the manger, 

our God held in flesh.

 

Let’s see the love flowing from heaven’s great throne 

and know Jesus has come  

to make us His own.

May you be blessed as you look at the Babe in the manger who is forever our Lord.

God's Song of Forgiveness

    

Floating on the breeze, I hear 

touching, poignant, crystal clear – 
  a song of heavenly majesty
  a message sent from God to me.

The song was born, as God's heart broke 

when His creation sinned.  

He named the song forgiveness.

It would bring us back to Him.

Beating in the heart of God the Holy song began,

forgiveness,

oneness,

purity was coming back to man.

The song, expressing love divine - 
a gift for all the world,

the priceless symphony of hope,

God's holy, triumph song unfurled.

It spun through heaven on starlit beams, 

and came to rest within

the virgin Mary's loving arms

in the town of Bethlehem.

As you listen to God's song this Christmas

may you know that this is true

the Son of God came down to earth

to sing God's song for you.

That song came to earth when God’s Son was born in a stable, in Bethlehem over 2000 years ago.  It is a song of love, of triumph over sin, a song of hope for each of us.  It’s a song of forgiveness.

May you feel the love that comes from the voice and heart of God in this song.  It’s meant for each of you this Christmas.

Love, Diane

Gruchow, D.M.

These my Christmas Dreams

Xulon Press, 2008

It Happened in the Garden

 Dear Friends,

It's the time of the year when we all begin thinking about the celebration of the birth of Jesus.  As is usual for me, I'm writing  about the reason we celebrate.  Would you journey through those thoughts with me?

The Wall
and the Promise

God walked with a man and a woman in a beautiful garden.  He knew them, because He had created them.  He knew their strengths and limitations and they knew Him.  They saw Him, felt His presence, and talked with Him. They were His children. They were held in the arms of their Father.  They were family.

But as time went on, they chose not to follow His direction, and they chose to listen to another voice.

That changed everything.  With that choice they built a wall that would stand between them and home – between man and woman and their Maker.  God wouldn’t live with that wall.  It wasn’t His wall. He told His children they were to leave the freedom of the garden.  He would no longer be right there in their sight because of the wall they had built. 
 
But He also promised that someday, when “The fullness of time” had come, He would send a someone to carry that wall away.  That "someone" would be the Son of God.  And of His own free will, in His humanity, He would be the perfect one to destroy the wall.

The Son of God would walk with mankind.  He would feel their humanness and would know of their desire to live within the wall.

The Son would live as a man, but only as God had originally planned for mankind to live.  He would live as a clear unblemished, see-through man, and He would remind them of the beauty they had shut out with the wall.  And through Him  they would then see their Father, once again.

And it happened!  When the fullness of time had come – it happened.  

But when the fullness of the time had come, 

God sent forth His Son, 

born of a woman, born under the law, 

to redeem those who were under the law, 

that we might receive the adoption as sons.
Galatians 4:4  (NKJV)  

God sent His own Son to tear down that wall. The Son pulled the wall down on himself - the wall that was made of the bricks of sin and self that we humans want to love, or use, or keep.  The Son chose to take that wall on his own shoulders, and it killed Him.

The sin that men love killed the Son - the perfect One. He was the only one who could destroy the wall.  He gave His life to destroy the wall.  

But that was not the end.  The Son rose from the grave.  He not only overcame the wall of sin, but He overcame death - the horrible result of man walking away from God’s presence.

No longer does the wall need to separate men from God.  Because of what our promised Savior did, we can come back home to our Father.  We can walk with Him in the garden again. 
 
We can!  If only we will look up and reach toward His welcoming arms.

We can!  If we but trust in the name of Jesus, The Christ, The Son of God.

Love, Diane

We can Choose

 
 

Jesus replied, “Anyone who loves me will obey my teaching.
My Father will love them, and we will come to them
and make our home with them. 
Anyone who does not love me will not obey my teaching.
These words you hear are not my own;
they belong to the Father who sent me.
John 14:23-24 (NIV) 

We can choose

To listen to God, to obey Him, to love and pay

attention to His voice, or …  

We can choose to let the world’s voice control us.

I do want to give God the reins of my thoughts, my emotions and my actions - to let His word control my life.  But it’s a constant battle - choosing to listen to His Spirit rather than the voices around me.   

As I listen to the noise of the world, I sometimes wonder whether anyone is really choosing, or if we are just being swept along by the tide of our culture.  And I wonder how much of the time I’m being led by something other than the Word of God.

It doesn’t come easy, and it’s not a given, that if I believe in Jesus, the Son of God, I will automatically live within His direction.  I must still choose.

As a Christian, I believe that the Bible is God’s letter to the world, and I specifically know that the words in that Book are applicable to my life as a child of His.  So I will choose to trust that God has directed the words written there.

God does not change, and God does not need to be taught by people in our time who want to change His word to suit their own desires.  What He has said in this Bible will forever stand. 
 
We are all made in His image, and in that, we are made so that we can choose.  And what we continue to choose determines who we are - whose children we are – the Children of God, or children of Satan.  We cannot just go our own way and think that God will bless our lives – it doesn’t work like that.  We must choose His directions on this path of life.

So we can choose.

When the world says it’s right to dishonor God’s word - 

when I’m told that God changed what He's always called sin.

I can choose to believe the words of false prophets,

or believe what God said.  

I can choose to trust Him.

I can choose to remember that I can’t control

what others believe or how blinded they’ve been.

But 

I can choose to remember that God is 

“The Word.” 

He is trustworthy and true 

and today I can choose 

to believe only Him.

Pictures in Time

Dear Friends, 

I spent a few minutes this morning looking at some old photos, I can’t believe how the years have flown by.  We were so young, so alive, so able – and now, what I find are many beautiful memories inspired by the pictures on my computer.  

These, my memories, belong to the cherished ones in those pictures, and we all see them differently.  I see them as they surround me, and Ron sees them through his eyes.  I don’t know what the other faces in those pictures remember, or whether they smile at the memories,  But those times, they are past, and I cannot live in the past.

Lately, I’ve also spent some time thinking about the future.  Oh yes, at 84, there is still a future, but it’s definitely not anything like those pictures on my computer, or in my mind.  It’s a future that my mind can’t even decipher.  When I try to think of the immediate future it’s a little difficult, since it could contain more beautiful memories, or maybe some truly difficult times.  I guess I believe it will be a combination of beauty and pain.  

So when I look at the future, I find myself not wanting to spend time thinking about the immediate future, but instead, looking  forward to the future time when I’ll be taking a trip to my final home, my ultimate life.  

Trying to picture the beauty and the excitement of seeing my Savior, my God, gives me comfort, and yes, excitement.  I’m also filled with peace when I think of that life.  It’s something so beautiful and so foreign that my mind cannot paint a picture of it.
So, I will just bask in the reassuring picture that Jesus gives us when He says – 

Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, 

and I will give you rest.  Matthew 11:28 (NIV)

and

My Father’s house has many rooms; if that were not so, 

would I have told you that I am going there to prepare a place for you?  

And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come back and take you

 to be with me that you also may be where I am.  John 14:2-3 (NIV)