Merry Christmas!!

 Several hours ago I had some idea what I wanted to write for this post. I suppose I should have stopped right then and written it, but I had to make a trip to the store and the post office. There were some muffins to make for some friends whose family is visiting for Christmas. I needed to go to my daughter's house and enjoy an annual shoe box dinner with her and two of my grandchildren and a great granddaughter, as well as some close friends. These things are all blessings to me. Tomorrow we'll open gifts and have more family and friends over to share an abundance of food and hopefully and abundance of laughter. Like so many others, I sometimes get caught up in all the gift giving and holiday cheer, that I forget that there is a reason why we celebrate Christmas. It's because God loved us enough to send His very best. John 3:16 states that "God so loved the world that he gave his only son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but shall have eternal life. For God didn't send him into the world to condemn the world, but to save the world through him." Take a look around you. Pick up a newspaper or spend a half hour watching the news. A lot of people don't want to because the news is depressing. It seems like the world is going to hell in a hand cart. Do you think it was any different the night Jesus was born? The Romans were occupying Israel, folks were being killed, there were riots and lust and greed just like now. Times haven't changed all that much. The same problems that plagued the ancient world continue to plague us now. That first Christmas night though, hope came into the world. God didn't wait until there were enough decent folks in the world to warrant the gift of eternal life. He looked down and saw what a mess we were,and knew that we couldn't and wouldn't change on our own, so in order for us to have eternal life, He sent Jesus. Don't think that Jesus was forced to go, that he grudgingly obeyed his father. He knew what was in store for him before he ever came to earth. Look at the story of his birth. His mom and dad lived in an ultra religious society where being pregnant out of wedlock was scandalous. Who would have believed Mary if she'd said that she was still a virgin? Forced to travel far from home by the government, by the time the baby was due there wasn't even a room to rent in the inn. Poor Mary had to deliver her first baby out in a barn with the animals. There was no doctor or midwife to assist. I'm sure Joseph had never delivered a baby before. He wasn't a doctor, he was a carpenter by trade. There wasn't a crib to lay their new born baby in. They had to settle for a feeding trough. Not a very glamorous setting for the son of God, but it was the way God set it up. Joseph and Mary might have  had some doubts about this whole experience if they hadn't already each heard from angels directing their paths. I'm sure they were encouraged all the more by the arrival of the shepherds who spoke of a heavenly choir directing them to the manger, and the visit from the wise men bringing gifts for the king of all the earth. Jesus is the gift that keeps on giving. You'll never get a better gift for as long as you live, but as with any gift, you have to accept it. You can't buy it with money. You could never do enough good works to earn it. Nothing you have now or will ever have in the future can compare to salvation. If you don't already know the story of the first Christmas, I hope you'll check it out. More than that, I hope that you'll accept the gift of salvation that the God of all the universe is offering. Have a merry Christmas. God bless you all.