Greetings and best wishes from Pilgrim Presbyterian Church in Vinita, Oklahoma, at America's crossroads, on historic Route 66.
My Christmas message is simple and direct: your life in Christ, and Christ's life in you, will change your very being for the better!
It is this affirmation that Dickens, in A Christmas Carol, wrote a classic story that is a favorite around the world. It is beloved because it is a story of hope.
You may remember that Ebenezer Scrooge is pictured as a wealthy man who employs his nephew, Fred, at pitiful poor wages, supported a joyful, closely bonded family, including a handicapped son.
By every reasonable standard Scrooge should have been on top of the world. He wasn't! And, the clerk's family should have been miserable. They were not!
Dickens implied that faith makes the difference. Faith has its own ability to change a person for the better. In this dramatic story, Scrooge was confronted with two facts:
- The fact of Christmas - the fact that God has come to dwell with us in the person of Jesus of Nazareth;
- and the fact of his own selfishness.
Scrooge had to choose which of those two facts he was going to embrace. After intense struggle, Ebenezer scrooge consciously chose to embrace the fact of Christmas - God with us. The result of that choice was a remarkable, dramatic change in his life.
Jesus - God with us - does change lives. What are some of the enduring changes we cherish as Christians?
The power of compassion, the healing of forgiveness, the transforming power of love, the energizing power of prayer and the sustaining power of faith.
With fond regards and all good wishes for a MERRY CHRISTMAS!
Richard
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