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Overview
Each December, most of us face that same question as we prepare to celebrate Christmas. Whether we will admit it to ourselves or not, we all yearn for true Christmas spirit in our hearts and homes each year. We want our Christmas to be one of peace on earth and goodwill towards men just as the angel announced to the shepherds. But after the shopping, wrapping, and relatives, often our Christmas experience is far from peaceful and there is little goodwill to go around.
We pull out the same decorations, put up the same tree in the same corner, with the same wreath on the same front door. We do the same Christmas stuff in the same Christmas way as last year and wonder why we get the same result–no lasting Christmas joy. Is true Christmas spirit a myth? Or, have we become so preoccupied with the hustle and bustle of the season that we unwittingly buy the secularized version of Christmas? It is only then that we discover the substitute the retailers are selling has no real Christmas spirit. Our disappointment is that we do Christmas things but still fail to see Christmas spirit in our hearts. So how do you find Christmas spirit? What are the keys to unlocking Christmas spirit in our hearts? Pastors must ask those same questions as they prepare their Christmas sermons. Recent research tells us that 90% of Americans celebrate Christmas, but over half have forgotten why. A majority of Americans now celebrate Christmas as primarily a cultural holiday, rather than recognizing the real reason for the season. Less than half of the millennials surveyed said they were planning to attend religious services on Christmas. What are Pastors going to preach Christmas Sunday that is inspired and anointed? And after 2,000 years, what can they possibly say that is fresh, relevant, and will make a real difference in the lives of their parishioners? To avoid losing the real meaning of Christmas, Pastors need to remind their people of the true purpose the coming of Christmas has for our lives. They must rediscover the spirit of Christmas in their hearts. But how?Through the Eyes of Christmas reveals the keys to unlocking Christmas spirit in your heart. By looking deep into the lives of the first Christmas participants, the book refocuses our vision to see Christmas from a fresh perspective. What were Mary and Joseph focused on that first Christmas night? When we relive Christmas by looking through the eyes of Mary, Joseph, the shepherds, the wise men and all of the other well-known (and some not so well-known) characters of the Christmas story, we discover what they were focused on. We see the Biblical truths their stories reveal. That brings the true, lasting joy of Christmas spirit into our lives. When those truths are applied to your life, it will be said of you as it was of Charles Dicken’s Ebenezer Scrooge, “…he knew how to keep Christmas well, if any man alive possessed the knowledge.” Order Ron Davis’ compelling and well-written book Through the Eyes of Christmas now to make this Christmas your best Christmas ever!
Product Details
| ISBN-13: | 9781595540799 |
|---|---|
| Publisher: | Elm Hill |
| Publication date: | 08/28/2018 |
| Pages: | 172 |
| Product dimensions: | 5.90(w) x 8.40(h) x 0.60(d) |
About the Author
Read an Excerpt
CHAPTER 1
Keeping Christmas Well
"Scrooge was better than his word ... and it was always said of him, that he knew how to keep Christmas well, if any man alive possessed the knowledge."
Charles Dickens
Ebenezer Scrooge. Fiction? Of course. But, what about keeping Christmas well? Is that also fantasy or perhaps just unachievable idealism? The idea of keeping Christmas well may cause some to echo Scrooge's familiar refrain: "Bah, humbug!"
But I do love the feeling of joy that comes especially at Christmas. This Christmas spirit is not the secularized concept that the television advertisers have of Christmas. Nor is it the merchandised, tinsel-wrapped idea the retailers want to sell you. Christmas spirit is a lasting joy birthed in faith when you choose to believe in the true spirit of Christmas.
The true spirit of Christmas is not some ghostly visitation that appeared to Ebenezer Scrooge. The true spirit of Christmas is an indescribable joy that emanates from deep within you. It starts when you accept the true meaning of Christmas and apply it to your heart. It is an inexplicable peace that floods your soul and like a rising tide lifts your spirit, regardless of the chaos or confusion that may surround your everyday life.
When you keep Christmas well, the spirit of Christmas changes your attitude; it bubbles up from within you and puts a smile on your face and a spring in your step–especially at Christmas time. It is commonly seen during the month of December on the faces of those who believe. But the real truth is that the true spirit of Christmas is a gift that can be carried with you throughout the year.
Whether we will admit it to ourselves or not, we all yearn for that true spirit of Christmas in our hearts and homes each year. We truly wish our Christmas to be one of peace on earth and goodwill towards men just like the angel announced to the shepherds. But after the shopping, spending, decorating, wrapping and relatives, many times our Christmas experience is far from peaceful and there is little goodwill to go around.
And each Christmas season, we promise ourselves that this year will be different. This year we will have a perfect Christmas with true Christmas spirit. The problem, of course, is how do you find that perfect spirit of Christmas? And once it is found, how do you keep from losing it?
Think back for a moment to your best Christmas memory as a little child. Do you remember those Christmas feelings of awe and anticipation that you had? Deep inside, we all long to recapture the innocence and wonder we felt as a little child at Christmas. But how can you experience that again? How can you experience the real joy of the Christmas season?
I am not talking about that feeling of fleeting happiness that some equate with Christmas joy. I want the joy that infects the true spirit of Christmas. I want an everlasting joy that gives true meaning to Christmas and carries you throughout the year. I want the kind of joy that keeps Christmas well.
It is easy to let the hustle and bustle that accompanies Christmas drown out the Christmas carol we hear in our heart. The Jingle Bell march toward a secular Christmas seems to have become the standard. Retailers use Christmas to balance their books for the year. To the retailer, Christmas is just another shopping season for selling. And each year, they seem to start the selling earlier. It is no longer just the day after Thanksgiving that the selling begins; no, now the super-duper, six-hour-only sales start Thanksgiving evening. For many merchants, the Christmas trees, lights, and decorations go up the day after Halloween!
Regrettably, far too many people will buy the secularized version of Christmas that the retailers sell them. Far too many people will just settle for the same old Christmas. They will 'do' Christmas as they have done in years past. No real, lasting Christmas joy will abound in their heart. They have no true understanding of why we are celebrating the season. They will do, but will not see Christmas this year.
This is how many will celebrate Christmas. Gifts will be bought and wrapped to place under a Christmas tree. The house will be decorated as in years past with the same lights and same tree in the same place. Cookies will be baked. Parties will be held. School concerts will be attended. Relatives will be entertained or at least endured. They might even make it to church once on Christmas Eve–if for no other reason–so they do not have to lie to their mother when she calls. When Christmas day comes, they will open presents, clean up the mess of wrapping paper, put away all the decorations, and wonder what all the work was for. Because in all that they are doing, they will once again miss seeing the joy of Christmas.
They will miss the spirit of Christmas because what produces the joy and wonder in our heart is not created by the mere doing of Christmas. True Christmas joy does not just happen in our heart because we pulled out and put up all of the Christmas trappings to adorn our home. For those who believe, the things we do at Christmas happen because true Christmas spirit has already been birthed in our heart. It is the spirit of Christmas that gives meaning to what we do.
So how can we get the spirit of Christmas to reside in our hearts and homes this season? The answer comes in the form of a question: What are you focusing on at Christmas? With all the distractions that will come during the Christmas Season–some good and some perhaps not so good–are you focused on seeing what is truly important for Christmas?
Make no mistake, the world will try to distract you from focusing on the true reason we celebrate Christmas. When it comes to Christmas decorations for your house, have you noticed the store shelves are full of lights, wreaths, and inflatable Santas, but few sell Nativity scenes for your front yard? The reason seems clear: the world wants you to compromise and conform to their secularized version of Christmas. They want you to coexist with how they view Christmas. If you must celebrate, they want you to celebrate Christmas their secularized way. They want you to say "Happy Holidays"' rather than say "Merry Christmas."
And we know why. They are worried saying 'Christmas' will emphasize Christ. The world does not want to acknowledge that Jesus Christ is the only true reason for the Christmas season. But it is the birth of Jesus that we celebrate, not the birth of Santa Claus. In fact, the celebration of Christmas started in the church as the Mass of Christ. The name was simply shortened to Christmas. We are not celebrating the coming of holidays, we are celebrating the coming of Christ.
But, the world wants you to believe that saying "Happy Holidays" is better; it is the politically correct and more inclusive thing to say. But we are not trying to draw attention to every holiday in December; we are trying to encourage one another about one, particular holiday. Nevertheless, they are worried someone may be offended by you declaring 'Merry Christmas' in their presence. Ironically, by pressuring people to say "Happy Holidays" they prefer to offend the person who believes in Christmas rather than take a chance of offending someone who doesn't even care about Christmas.
Truthfully, they do not want to be reminded of the real purpose of Christmas. The real purpose of Christmas is to recognize that a Savior, Christ the Lord, has come to forgive them of their sin. However, if they recognize a Savior has come, then they will have to acknowledge their sin. And admitting they are a sinner in need of a Savior is something they would rather not do.
But whether we intentionally or innocently slip into the secularized version of Christmas, the result is often the same: we lose our focus and fail to see Jesus at the center of the celebration. So how can we keep our focus when the hustle and bustle of the season press us in and stress us out? How can we see the true spirit of Christmas come alive in our hearts?
Perhaps one could start by asking: what were the people of the original Christmas story looking at on that first Christmas night 2,000 years ago? What were they focused on? The participants of that first Christmas night interrupted their everyday lives to intensely focus on a baby in a manger. What did Mary and Joseph see? What did the shepherds see? What about Herod, the chief priests, and the wise men? What were they looking for? To understand what they saw, to see what they experienced, and to realize how it changed their lives, we must look through their eyes–Through the Eyes of Christmas.
CHAPTER 2Make Room for Jesus
The only way we have to see through the eyes of the participants in the first Christmas story is to look to the Holy Bible. The Word of God accurately, intentionally, and insightfully records the story of each of the Christmas participants.
Only two of the four New Testament gospel writers dealt with the birth of Christ: Matthew and Luke. Matthew tells us about Joseph and the wise men. Luke tells us about Mary, the innkeeper, the manger, the shepherds, and the angels. Both give us a genealogy of Jesus tracing his lineage back to King David, Abraham, and Adam. It is in the Christmas story as related by Matthew and Luke that we gain focus and discover the keys to unlocking the true and lasting spirit of Christmas in our hearts.
Matthew and Luke pull back the celestial curtain of time and reveal the true story of the first Christmas. And while each told the Christmas story from a different perspective, viewed together we see revealed the entire tapestry of God's greatest gift to mankind–a Savior who is Christ the Lord. It is a tapestry that God has been designing for mankind from the foundation of the world.
Matthew writes to the Jews so they will see that Jesus Christ is their Messiah–the fulfillment of the Old Testament prophecies. In the first seventeen verses of Matthew, he gives the genealogy of Jesus through Joseph. He is establishing the royal lineage of Joseph to the House of David and thus to the throne of David. David's throne has been vacant for nearly 600 years, so anyone who would lay claim to David's throne as a rightful king would have to prove his royal lineage back to King David. Matthew establishes Jesus' royal ancestral line back to King David and to the patriarch of all Jews, Abraham. Because the Jews believed the Messiah would be both a descendant of David and Abraham, through this genealogy, Matthew proves the qualification of Jesus as the Messiah and rightful King of Israel. But this belief is not some wished for hope of the ancient Jews, God made covenants with Abraham and King David that the Messiah would come through their seed. (Genesis 17:1-7, 19; 2 Samuel 7:16)
As Matthew traces the genealogy from Abraham to Isaac to Jacob, he takes great care in noting that father begot son, who became a father and begot his son, down all of the generations until he reaches Joseph. There he changes the pattern and specifically states that Joseph was not the father who 'begot' Jesus, but was "the husband of Mary, of whom was born Jesus...." (Matthew 1:16 KJV) Under the law Joseph was, by his marriage to Mary, the legal father of Jesus on Earth. But Matthew and Luke make clear that Joseph was not the biological father of Jesus. Matthew makes this point by using the feminine form of the Greek pronoun that we translate by the words 'of whom,' which could only refer, then, to Mary. Luke uses the angel Gabriel.
This genealogy is an essential prologue to the Christmas story. It not only establishes Jesus as the Christ (meaning the anointed one) and the Messiah, but when overlaid upon the angelic announcement by Gabriel to Mary in Luke chapter 1, we see the virgin birth as prophesied by Isaiah over 700 years before. (Isaiah 7:14) And when Matthew's genealogy of Jesus is overlaid upon the Roman census, it tells us why Joseph and Mary had to travel to Bethlehem, and why Jesus was born in Bethlehem. Joseph and Mary were of the house and in the lineage of King David. Jesus' birth in Bethlehem was the perfect fulfillment of the Jewish prophet Micah's prophecy: it was the location of the birth of the Messiah. (Micah 5:2)
The second Christmas story writer, Luke, wrote to the Gentiles. Luke shows us Mary. He relates the announcement to Mary by the angel Gabriel. He also traces the genealogy of Jesus to establish a royal bloodline through Mary all the way back through King David to Adam (Luke 3:23-38).
Tracing the lineage back to Adam is essential to the Christmas story because it shows why Jesus, the Son of God had to come to Earth. Luke proves Jesus Christ was both the Son of God and the Son of Man. Sin entered mankind and the world by the disobedience of Adam and Eve. And to cover sin, God's law requires the shedding of innocent blood. (Hebrews 9:22) An animal had to be sacrificed because it was the only innocent substitute available to cover the sin and nakedness of mankind. Sin always brings death as its consequence. And redemption from sin requires an innocent, perfect substitute.
Because Adam was made in the image of God (as all mankind after him), the sacrificial blood of animals would never fully satisfy the requirements for redemption from sin. Although created by God, animals were not made in his image (only mankind was), and therefore animal sacrifice under the Law provided only a temporary covering for sin. Animal sacrifice under the Law had to be repeated annually. "Because it is impossible for the blood of bulls and goats to take away sins." (Hebrews 10:4 NIV) A man made in the image of God, fully divine as God and fully human as a man, would have to sacrifice his sinless blood to offer mankind a permanent redemption for sin. Jesus Christ is that fully God, fully human man who is the only one who qualifies to be the perfect and permanent sacrifice for our sins. (Hebrews 9:28, 10:10)
Luke also gave the historical background as to what happened when Mary and Joseph went to Bethlehem and explains why it happened. He reveals the details of Jesus birth in Bethlehem and the announcement by the angels to shepherds of the Savior's coming. He shows us all of the familiar scenes of the nativity: the inn, the manger, the shepherds, and the angels. Because Luke gives us these familiar scenes of Christmas, we can start looking for keys to unlocking Christmas spirit there.
Here is how Luke writes the beginning of the most longed-for story the world has ever known:
"And it came to pass in those days, that there went out a decree from Caesar Augustus, that all the world should be taxed. (And this taxing was first made when Cyrenius was governor of Syria.) And all went to be taxed, every one into his own city. And Joseph also went up from Galilee, out of the city of Nazareth, into Judaea, unto the city of David, which is called Bethlehem; (because he was of the house and lineage of David:) To be taxed with Mary his espoused wife, being great with child. And so it was, that, while they were there, the days were accomplished that she should be delivered. And she brought forth her firstborn son, and wrapped him in swaddling clothes, and laid him in a manger; because there was no room for them in the inn."
(Luke 2:1-7 KJV)
Luke explains why Jesus was born in a stable and placed in a manger: "... Because there was no room for him in the inn." (Luke 2:7 KJV) In the original Greek–the language used by Luke to write his gospel–Luke uses the word kataluma which the King James Bible translated as inn. However, there are two interpretations of the Greek word kataluma that can be translated for the inn. One interpretation translates to mean a guest-chamber or guest room of a house; the other interpretation translates to mean a lodging place or a commercial establishment we would recognize as a roadside inn.
Some of the modern Bible translations prefer the first meaning to say there was no guest room available in the house. They speculate Joseph must have still had some shirt-tail relation or possibly old family friends left in Bethlehem, and upon their arrival, Mary and Joseph went to his relation's or some family friend's house.
I suppose it is possible to conjecture that Jesus was born on the ground floor of a two-story Bethlehem house (the ground floor, surrounded by high walls, was the place where the animals were brought in at night; the family lived on the second floor). And I suppose it is possible to believe that Jesus was born on the ground floor with the animals because the guest room on the second floor of the house was already full with Joseph's or some other person's relatives.
But if Jesus had been born on the ground floor of a Bethlehem house and then placed in the feeding trough, with all the relatives around, I think Luke would have made mention of that. And the Christmas story is devoid of mentioning any of Joseph's relatives, even in Bethlehem. It's not to say that Joseph did not have any living relatives; it is just that there is no mention of them in the Christmas story.
(Continues…)
Excerpted from "Through the Eyes of Christmas"
by .
Copyright © 2018 Ron Davis.
Excerpted by permission of Thomas Nelson.
All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
Excerpts are provided by Dial-A-Book Inc. solely for the personal use of visitors to this web site.
Table of Contents
Foreword, vii,
Preface, ix,
Chapter 1: Keeping Christmas Well, 1,
Chapter 2: Make Room for Jesus, 9,
Chapter 3: This Must be the Place, 21,
Chapter 4: Surrendered Service, 33,
Chapter 5: Just Obedience, 43,
Chapter 6: Sharing Jesus with Others, 53,
Chapter 7: Never Lose the Wonder, 69,
Chapter 8: Willing to Worship, 73,
Chapter 9: That Needful Thing, 89,
Chapter 10: Never Too Old for Christmas, 97,
Chapter 11: Expecting Christmas, 107,
Chapter 12: Just Believe, 125,
The Christmas Spirit, 145,
References, 155,
About the Author, 159,