O Holy Night

Romans 15:12-13(NIV)

And again, Isaiah says,

“The Root of Jesse will spring up, one who will arise to rule over the nations;in him the Gentiles will hope.” May the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace as you trust in him, so that you may overflow with hope by the power of the Holy Spirit.

Monday all day, I kept seeing the ice stuck to the branches of the trees. As the sun shone on them, all I could see was shinning, sparkling, shimmering lights bursting forth from the branches of trees that are dormant for the winter.  I couldn’t help but think of Christmas Eve.  The night when our Lord was born.  As he burst on to earth, born of a virgin, a shinning beacon of Hope for the world. For each one of us, he came to redeem and bring us new life.  To take us from our dormant state into true flourishing life.  

If you think of a believers life, it is almost as if we were dormant before we knew Christ. Awaiting a glorious seed of living water to bring us forth into new birth. Deep inside we are all created to be one with Christ, but until we personally are called, until we feel the pull of His love, our lives in a sense are dormant, in a survival mode of sorts, shut down to protect our vital resources,  awaiting a new awakening to grow and flourish.  

If you are not a Christ follower, drawing on his eternal source of life, you are simply in survival mode.  Trying to exist in a world that is in a constant state of flux, a world that is simply for itself, churning forward with no eternal purpose.  Until you look beyond yourself, you move at the will of the world.  Dormant, missing your eternal purpose and missing the glorious life that could be.  Not living to the full potential that God has created you to be. 

When you take time to see who Jesus is, to learn who he is, why he burst forth on earth in human form, then you can see the possibility of all that can be.  He came so that you could be saved from death.  We are all sinners, we have a tendency to want to live our own way, be the king of our own lives.  But God, did not design us to live that way.  Our sin, disobedience to God’s commands, puts a barrier between us and him.  A barrier that requires a penalty for that disobedience.  Jesus came to fulfill that penalty once and for all by his death on the cross, so that we could live as God’s children, so we could have eternal life, one that flourishes under his loving hand.  Forgiveness, Mercy and Grace.

Once we call Jesus our King, our Savior,  and look to him for true life, we awaken, grow and flourish under his care,  Not swaying in the wind as the world pushes us to and fro, but we have a rock, a foundation that we can call on each and every day to anchor us in the storms of the world.  Hope. He will take us from dormancy to a life that flourishes,  growing within us seeds of hope that we are able to spread around our families and neighborhoods. A newly redeemed life sparkling, shimmering, bursting forth under the loving care of our Lord. 

Do you know my Jesus?  I pray that the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace as you turn to him, learn about him, seek him out, so that you may overflow with hope by the power of the Holy Spirit. I pray this Christmas, you will listen for God calling your name and turn to him so that you will live a life that flourishes under his loving hand.