Christmas comes this week. We recollect the stories of Jesus the Messiah's coming so long ago and rejoice with the faithful in the hope (our confident and assured knowledge) that He will soon come again.
Romans 8:19-23 (NIV) "I put this in human terms because you are weak in your natural selves. Just as you used to offer the parts of your body in slavery to impurity and to ever-increasing wickedness, so now offer them in slavery to righteousness leading to holiness. When you were slaves to sin, you were free from the control of righteousness. What benefit did you reap at that time from the things you are now ashamed of? Those things result in death! But now that you have been set free from sin and have become slaves to God, the benefit you reap leads to holiness, and the result is eternal life. For the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord."
Our wage...what we've EARNED is death. We sin. We constantly fall short. We are poor miserable sinners WORHTY of nothing by derision, shame and yes...Death! Anyone eager to cash that paycheck? No, we're all like the Cat, Dog, & Duck in the Little Red Hen story eager to say..."NOT I!" But unlike the traditional end to that story, when the Cat, Dog & Duck are very willing to eat the bread none helped or deserved, Our Lord does let us eat of the Bread of Life. Our Wage, our earnings bring us death. Our Lord gives us life as a gift. We've been set free by Jesus the Messiah's death and resurrection and the result it holiness and eternal life for us all, by the grace of God, through faith. Come Lord Jesus, Come! Merry Christmas...tis the greatest gift I have and ever will receive.
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