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When fear shapes our lives, safety becomes our god.  We worship the risk-free life.  The fear-filled cannot love deeply because love is risky.  They cannot give to the poor because benevolence has no guarantee of return.  The fear-filled cannot dream wildly.  What if their dreams fail?

No wonder Jesus wages such a war against fear.  In Matthew 8:26, “Jesus got up and gave a command to the wind and the waves, and it became completely calm.”  The sea becomes as still as a frozen lake, and the disciples are left wondering, “What kind of man is this?  Even the winds and the waves obey him!”  What kind of man, indeed.  Turning typhoon time into nap time.  Silencing waves with one word.

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Christ-followers contract malaria, bury children, and battle addictions.  And, as a result, we face fears.  It’s not the absence of storms that sets us apart.  It’s whom we discover in the storm— an unstirred Christ.

Matthew 8:24 says, “Jesus was sleeping.”  Now there’s a scene. The disciples scream, yet Jesus dreams.  “Do you not care that we are perishing?”  Fear corrodes our confidence in God’s goodness.  It unleashes a swarm of anger-stirring doubts. Fear creates a form of spiritual amnesia.  It makes us forget what Jesus has done and how good God is.  Jesus takes our fears seriously.  Don’t be afraid.

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2 Corinthians 3:18 says, “We all with unveiled face, beholding the glory of the Lord, are being changed into his likeness. . .”  As we behold him, we become like him.

It’s a principle I experienced first-hand when an opera singer visited our church.  You wouldn’t have known by his appearance.  But you could by his voice. He tried to contain himself, but how can a tuba hide in a room of piccolos?  I was startled…inspired…emboldened by his volume!  I lifted mine.  Did I sing better?  No, but did I try harder?  No doubt.  His power brought out the best in me.  Could your world use a little music?  If so, invite heaven’s baritone, Jesus Christ, to cut loose.  Who knows?  A few songs with him might change the way you sing!

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Do you visit the Grand Canyon for the T-shirt or the snow globe?  No.  The reward of the Grand Canyon is the Grand Canyon!  It’s the wide-eyed realization you’re part of something ancient, splendid, powerful and greater than you!

The cache of Christianity is Christ!  Not money in the bank or a car in the garage or a better self-image.  The Fort Knox of faith is Christ.  It is fellowship with Him.  It’s walking with Him and pondering Him.  It’s the heart-stopping realization that in Him you’re part of something endless, unstoppable, unfathomable!  And that He, who can dig the Grand Canyon with His pinkie, thinks you’re worth His death on Roman timber.  Christ is the reward of Christianity.

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“Who do you say I am?” Jesus asks of Peter. “I believe…um.”  Maybe he wasn’t that hesitant.  But if he was, you can hardly fault him.  How many times do you call a callous-handed nail bender from a one-camel town the Son of God.

Remember the drawings with the question, “What’s wrong with this picture?”  We’d look closely for something that didn’t fit—like an astronaut on the moon with a pay phone in the background.  God doesn’t chum with common folk or snooze in fishing boats.  But Colossians 2:9 says He did!  “For in Christ there is all of God in a human body.”  All God, all man. Don’t we need a God-man Savior?  Nothing compares to what Philippians 3:8 says is “the surpassing worth of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord!”

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Maybe your life resembles a Bethlehem stable.  Crude in some spots, smelly in others.  Not much glamour.  You do your best to make the best of it, but try as you might, the roof still leaks, and the winter wind still sneaks through the holes you just can’t seem to fix.  You’ve shivered through your share of cold nights.  And you wonder if God has a place for a person like you.

Find your answers in the Bethlehem stable.  The story of Christmas is the story of God’s relentless love for us.  The moment Mary touched God’s face is the moment God made His case!  There is no place he will not go.  No place is too common.  No person is too hardened.  No distance is too far.  There’s no person he cannot reach.  There is no limit to his love!

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Hollywood would recast the Christmas story!  Joseph’s collar is way too blue.  Mary is green from inexperience.  The couple’s star power doesn’t match the bill.  Too obscure.  Too simple.  The story warrants some headliners.  And what about the shepherds?  Do they sing?  A good public relations firm would move the birth to a big city.  The Son of God deserves a royal entry.  Less peasant, more pizzaz.

But we didn’t design the hour.  God did.  And God was content to enter the world in the presence of sleepy sheep and a wide-eyed carpenter.  No spotlights, just candlelight.  No crowns, just cows chewing cud.  If God was willing to wrap himself in rags, then all questions about his love for you are off the table.  When Christ was born, so was our hope.  That’s why I love Christmas!

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The Christmas tree hunt is on!  The preferences are different, but the desire is the same.  We want the perfect Christmas tree!  You search for the right one.  You walk the rows.  You examine them from all angles.  This one is perfect!

God does the same.  He has picked you.  He knows just the place where you’ll be placed.  He has a barren living room in desperate need of warmth and joy.  A corner of the world needs some color.  He selected you with that place in mind.  God made you on purpose with a purpose.  He interwove calendar and character, circumstance and personality to create the right person for the right corner of the world, and then he paid the price to take you home. 1 Corinthians 6:20 says, “God bought you with a high price.”  The Christmas promise is this:  we have a Savior and his name is Jesus!

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A remarkable gift can arrive in an unremarkable package!  One did in Bethlehem.  We don’t often think of Paul in our Christmas reflections.  Yet we should.  His words in Philippians 2:5-11 are the Bible’s most eloquent summary of the Bethlehem promise.

“Who being in very nature God, did not consider equality with God . . .rather he made himself nothing by taking the very form of a servant, being made in human likeness, and being found in appearance as a man, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to death—even death on a cross.

Therefore God called him to the highest place and gave him the name that is above every name, that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow. . .and every tongue acknowledge that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father!”

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Christmas is a season of interruptions.  Some we enjoy.  Some we don’t!  You may be facing an interruption during this season of life.  What you wanted and what you received do not match.  And now you’re troubled and anxious.  Everything inside you and every voice around you says, “Get out.  Get angry.”

But don’t listen to those voices.  You cannot face a crisis if you don’t face God first.  Colossians 1:16-17 says, “For everything, absolutely everything, above and below, visible and invisible, rank after rank after rank of angels—everything got started in him and finds its purpose in him.  He was there before any of it came into existence and holds it all together right up to this moment.”  God holds it all together.  And he will hold it together for you!

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If we could save ourselves—why would we need a Savior?  Jesus didn’t enter the world to help us save ourselves.  He entered the world to save us from ourselves.

As a Boy Scout, I earned a lifesaving merit badge.  The fact is, the only people I saved were other Boy Scouts who didn’t need to be saved.  During training I would rescue other trainees.  We took turns saving each other.  But since we weren’t really drowning, we resisted being rescued.  “Stop kicking and let me save you,” I’d say.

It’s impossible to save those who are trying to save themselves.  You might save yourself from a broken heart or going broke or running out of gas.  But you’re not good enough to save yourself from sin.  You are not strong enough to save yourself from death.  You need a Savior…and because of Bethlehem, you have one!

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Jesus not only did a work for us; he does a work in us!  Colossians 1:27 tells us, “The mystery in a nutshell is just this:  Christ is in you.”  He commands our hands and feet, requisitions our minds and tongues.  As Romans 8:29 declares,  “He decided from the outset to shape the lives of those who love him along the same lines as the life of his Son.”

We’ll never be sinless, but we will sin less. And when we do sin, we have assurance that the grace that saved us also preserves us. We may lose our tempers, our perspective, and our self-control.  But we never lose our hope.  Scripture promises, “He is able to keep you from stumbling, and to present you faultless before the presence of His glory with exceeding joy!”

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God has high plans for you and me.  He is recruiting for himself a people who will populate heaven.  It will be perfect.  Perfect in splendor.  Perfect in righteousness.  One word describes heaven:  perfect!  One word describes us:  imperfect!  So what does God do?  Abandon us?  Start over?  He could.  But he loves us too much to do that.

Will he populate heaven with rebellious, self-centered citizens?  If so, would heaven be heaven?  Colossians 1:19 says, “God was pleased for all of himself to live in Christ.”  All the love of God was in Jesus.  All the strength of God was in Jesus.  All the compassion and power and devotion of God were, for a time, in the earthly body of a carpenter. What started in the Bethlehem cradle culminated on the Jerusalem cross!  And God did it all to take us home to heaven.

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The sinful nature is the stubborn, self-centered attitude that says, “My way or the highway.” The sinful nature is all about self: pleasing self, promoting self, preserving self.  I have a sin nature!  So do you.  Under the right circumstances you will do the wrong thing.  You’ll try not to, but you will.  You have a sin nature.  You were born with it.

The heart of the human problem is the problem of the human heart! Christmas commemorates the day and the way God saved us from ourselves.  The angel speaking to Mary in Matthew 1:21 says, “. . .you are to give him the name Jesus, because he will save his people from their sins.”  Each of us entered the world with a sin nature. God entered the world to take it away!

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Would you like to see God?  Take a look at Jesus!  Hebrews 1:3 says, “Jesus radiates God’s own glory and expresses the very character of God.”  In John 14:9, Jesus himself said, “Anyone who has seen me has seen the Father.”  Anyone who has seen me weep has seen the Father weep.  Anyone who has seen me laugh as seen the Father laugh.  Anyone who has seen me determined has seen the Father determined.

Everything changes when we see the face of God.  He came with tears too.  He knows the burden of a broken heart.  He knows the sorrow life can bring.  He could have come as a shining light or a voice in the clouds, but he came as a person.  Does God understand you?  Look into God’s face and be assured.  Find the answer in Bethlehem.

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A friend of mine asked her students to make a list of questions, they would like to ask Mary. Here are some responses: “What was Jesus’ first word?” “Did he ever get sick?”  “Did Jesus ever misbehave?” They’re all legitimate questions.

The fact that we can ask them raises a greater one.  Why did God go so far?  Why did He become a human being?  A chief reason?  He wants you to know that he gets you. The Bible says in the book of Hebrews, He understands how you feel and has faced what you face.  Jesus has been through weakness and testing, experienced it all—all but the sin!  (Hebrews 4:15-16).  So let’s walk right up to him and get what he is so ready to give.  “Take the mercy, accept the help!” Because of Bethlehem, you can boldly go to him!

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If you want to see people on the edge of insanity, just watch the way families treat their babies at Christmastime!  The poor child has no warning!  Red furry stocking cap, goofy elfish shoes that curl at the toes.  And the pictures we take!  Baby snoozing under the tree.  Baby on Santa’s lap.  Santa with wet spot on lap.

Is not Christmas the story of a baby?  The moment that shaped all others?  Mary’s eyes falling on the face of her just-born son.  The first to whisper, “So this is what God looks like!” Never in mankind’s wildest imaginings did we consider that God would enter the world as an infant.  John 1:14 says, “The Word became flesh and dwelt among us.”  Would you like to see God?   Take a look at the baby Jesus!

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No day is accidental or incidental.  No acts are random or wasted.  Look at Jesus’ birth at Bethlehem.  A king ordered a census.  Joseph was forced to travel.  Mary, as round as a ladybug, bounced on a donkey’s back.  The hotel was full.  The hour was late.  The event was one big hassle.

Yet out of the hassle, hope was born.  It still is.  I don’t like hassles.  But I love Christmas because it reminds us of the heart-shaping promises of Christmas.  Long after the guests have left, and the carolers have gone home and the lights have come down, these promises endure:  God causes everything to work together for the good of those who love God (Romans 8:28).  Perhaps you could use some Christmas this Christmas?

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In Matthew 1:23, God called himself, “Immanuel”—which means, God with us!  Not just “God made us” or “God thinks about us.”  Not just “God above us.”  But God with us…God where we are.  He breathed our air and walked this earth. God. . .with. . .us!

Bethlehem was just the beginning.  Jesus has promised a repeat performance. Bethlehem, Act Two.  No silent night this time, however.  The skies will open, trumpets will blast, and a new kingdom will begin.  He will empty the tombs and melt the winter of death.  Death, you die!  Life, you reign!

The manger dares us to believe the best is yet to be.  I love Christmas because it reminds us how God causes everything to work together for the good of those who love Him (Romans 8:28).

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My dad, a man of few words, told my brother and me, “Boys, Christmas is about Jesus!”  In one of those bedtime, book-time moments, somewhere between the fairy tales and the monkey with the lunch pail, I thought about what he had said.  I began asking the Christmas questions.  And I’ve been asking them ever since!

God knows what it’s like to be a human.  When we talk to him about deadlines or tough times, he understands.  He’s been there.  He’s been here.  Because of Bethlehem, we have a friend in Jesus.  Christmas begins what Easter celebrates.  The child in the cradle became the King on the cross.  He doesn’t tell us, “Clean up before you come in.”  He offers, “Come in and I’ll clean you up.”  It’s not our grip on him that matters, but his grip on us!  And his grip is sure!

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