Greetings;
Today is Christmas and I am writing my blog a day early to wish you all a Merry Christmas! I hope you are all enjoying the expressions of God’s love in the form of family and friends. As I went for my morning run I had to reflect on the impact of the birth of the Christ child with the absence of the normal morning traffic and busyness of the city. Even those who are unaware have been impacted by the breathtaking gift of our Father’s love. Perhaps the world is marked with a moment to breath that they might know the gift a good God in the midst of a not always good world!
God became flesh and moved into the neighborhood! God has always wanted a family relationship with people. His true nature is that of Father and He has longed for a relationship with people on the basis of a Father to His children and for them to know Him as their Father. This is the testimony of a good God who loves people! His birth in Bethlehem as Jesus was a human expression of the heavenly Father’s love. Born in a room familiar to the common men, Jesus was found by shepherds as they gazed upon the simple love of God wrapped in common clothes in a feeding trough for animals. It was an event missed by most, but discovered by those who sought the glory of God in such a common place.
What about today? Where can you find God in your neighborhood? I believe He still inhabits the flesh of common men in common places. He is hidden from most, but found by those who seek the glory of God in the everyday realities of life. He is the supernatural expression of the Father’s love found by those who seek Him. Perhaps His placement in a feeding trough for animals reveals a secret to finding Him? He is found by those who innocently come with hunger in their hearts for the true food of life. He was the expression of the Father because He wanted all men to become expressions of Him as their heavenly Father. He wanted all men to know that to truly live you must feed upon the expressions of a heavenly Father. Feeding upon His words of life will cause men to become expressions of God’s love to a world in need.
Jesus was born in a city called Bethlehem, a name meaning “house of bread”. The Bread of Life sent down from heaven was born in a place for the hungry of heart. A man became a source of life for all men that all men might become sources of life to the world. Perhaps the greater works that Jesus spoke of were meant to be gifts of life through the life of God’s family to a world in need? I believe that the Word became flesh so that all flesh might become expressions of God’s word. God speaks and life happens! God speaks in common places and common places become extraordinary testimonies of God’s amazing grace! The birth of Christ in Bethlehem is an amazing story, but the birth of Christ within your heart is an even more amazing one! Christ in you is the hope of glory! It is the hope of the weight of the influence of the character, nature, way, power, and authority of our heavenly Father to the worlds in which you live.
What can we expect in this year to come? I believe we can expect to find Christ among the common places of men in extraordinary testimonies of life! Many will not see Him, but the hungry will find Him in the humblest of feeding places. Like the man who knocked upon the door of his sleeping friend in hope of finding true bread (3 loves – God bread), the hungry will be satisfied by God’s life-giving expressions of love (Lk. 11:5-8).
On this Christmas day, remember the true gifts are the gifts of love. Our heavenly Father loved us enough to give us the gift of a Son. He gave the gift of a child that we too might know Him as our Father. Open the package! The package is you! You are a child of God because of the gift of life through God’s own Son! Let’s be the gift of God’s life to a world in need. The hungry will find Him just as those simple shepherds found Him so many years ago; He will be in the feeding places of the humble! Come taste and see – the Lord is good!
Merry Christmas,
Ted J. Hanson
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Especially liking “…those who innocently come with hunger in their hearts for the true food of life” Thank you again for making Mondays a meal not just a treat.m
Thanks Mike – Let’s stay innocently hungry! After all, grandpas are good little children!