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This is the Real “ Christmas”!!
It is the Day we believe, receive, and take into the core of our being the Body and the Blood of God’s atoning provision found in the Lamb of God (John 1:29) , Jesus, the Anointed One.
Christmas - Christ – Anointed One: Mass – death. I realize that the word does not appear in scripture, but the word “Christmas” in our English language is composed of two parts – “Christ” means “anointed one”, and “mass” means “death”. In the root meanings of these elements I can see the clues to what I perceive as the true “Christmas” day.
God tells us to remember the day that we place the Blood of the Lamb over the doorposts of our dwelling. This is the same day that we are delivered from the power and the bondage of Egypt (representing Sin). We are to remember the day that WE TAKE IT. Historically, all of Israel had a day, the 14 th of Aviv when they collectively “took a lamb for a house” and appropriated God’s provision to save them. In their case they literally ate the lamb. Jesus told his disciples at the last meal they shared, “This is my body, take it and eat it.”(Matthew 26:26) But now, the provision has already been made, Jesus gave his life as a ransom for all, there is no further payment required. Only appropriation of the provision, only believing, yielding over anything and all things that are in place of and in opposition to that One provision of God to deliver us.
Christmas is the day we are saved, more accurately it is the day that our saving or our salvation begins. It is the day when the Messiah’s death becomes our death to sin and we walk out of our old life into the new life provided by the life (blood) of the Messiah that is poured out for us. Now I did not enter into the Kingdom of God on the same day as you (most likely), but the provision for my life was always there. The day I surrendered is the day that the death (mass) of the Messiah Jesus (Christ) became effective in my life and I was delivered. When December 25 th comes, that is the day I see, that is the event that I remember.
I have the picture of this little babe, this small living reality of God’s covenant word actually birthing and having a physical reality within my Heart. It does not look like a child, but it is child-like in that it is not a threatening or forbidding thing, but it is full of a form of Life that has never been in my Heart up until this day, this Christmas within. The words of John the Baptist ring true… “He must increase, but I must decrease” (John 3:30). And so has my life gone. The Kingdom of God is within you (Luke 17:21); your body is His temple (1 Corinthians 3:16) He is Holy and powerful and His temple must and will be transformed into His image. That is a powerful and awesome progression!
And much like Herod, everything that was in charge of my life up until that time wanted to kill the child. Kill this manifestation of the Word of God in my being, but I was and am still being protected and delivered from Death into Life by the Faithfulness of the Father who constantly watches over His Word (in me) to see that it accomplishes what it was sent to do (Isaiah 55:11).
If you do not have a day like that in your life, you have no Christmas. As far as I am concerned; you have gift giving, traditions, a little “do-good” event or two, but nothing of any real value.
I firmly believe that God did not place a day on the calendar for the birth of the boy Jesus – as supernatural and important as that day was and is –because the day of our receiving Jesus Life poured out for us : THAT gift is far and above more important to Him.
It is so important that he says, “Let this day be to you as the beginning of days!”
Let’s start your life all over, forget the former things and look forward to what is ahead.
With that understood, we can easily add these scriptures to our favorite Christmas verses.
Jeremiah 31:31-37
1 "The time is coming," declares the LORD, "when I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and with the house of Judah.
32 It will not be like the covenant I made with their forefathers when I took them by the hand to lead them out of Egypt, because they broke my covenant, though I was a husband to them," declares the LORD.
33 "This is the covenant I will make with the house of Israel after that time," declares the LORD."I will put my law in their minds and write it on their hearts. I will be their God, and they will be my people.
34 No longer will a man teach his neighbor or a man his brother, saying, 'Know the LORD, 'because they will all know me, from the least of them to the greatest," declares the LORD. "For I will forgive their wickedness and will remember their sins no more."
35 This is what the LORD says,
he who appoints the sun to shine by day, who decrees the moon and stars to shine by night, who stirs up the sea so that its waves roar--the LORD Almighty is his name:
36 "Only if these decrees vanish from my sight, "declares the LORD, "will the descendants of Israel ever cease to be a nation before me."
37 This is what the LORD says:
"Only if the heavens above can be measured
and the foundations of the earth below be searched out
will I reject all the descendants of Israel
because of all they have done,"
declares the LORD.
New International Version
Ezek 36:24-29
For I will take you from among the nations, gather you out of all countries, and bring you into your own land. Then I will sprinkle clean water on you, and you shall be clean; I will cleanse you from all your filthiness and from all your idols.
I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit within you; I will take the heart of stone out of your flesh and give you a heart of flesh.
I will put My Spirit within you and cause you to walk in My statutes, and you will keep My judgments and do them.
Then you shall dwell in the land that I gave to your fathers; you shall be My people, and I will be your God.
New King James Version
And that is a Merry Christmas indeed!!
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