Each year the PROGRESS invites the clergy from all of the local churches to write a Christmas message addressed to the community for publication in our holiday edition. The following is what we received for this year’s edition. We appreciate all of the local clergy for their great service to the community and these particular clergy members for their thought-provoking and heartwarming messages to us over the years. We always welcome such messages at any time throughout the year they wish to share them.
Pastor Wayne Evans
New Hope Christian Church
The real wonder of Christmas is not the decorations, the gifts, the parties nor the meals. It is the amazing reality that God broke into our world in the flesh! The world around us has invented many ways in which to celebrate this marvelous event, (if they celebrate it at all), but the fact is: We can never truly experience Christmas unless we experience the Christ of Christmas! He who has not Christmas in his heart will never find it under a tree!
The Gospel of John chapter 1 verses 1-14 are some of the most significant verses of Scripture to help us understand God and His desire to know us and have us know Him. We sometimes say, “Actions speak louder than words”, but with God…His Actions ARE EXACTLY like His Words! His thoughts or Words are the same as His Actions.
The Word of God has always existed, He is not created, He was there in the beginning already. The statement that “the Word was WITH God and WAS God” clearly shows us that the Word of God is another member of the Godhead and equal with God because He is God! In this way, we can actually come to know God since we have His Word which became flesh in Jesus Christ! Even though we have never seen God, we have seen God in Christ! Thus, the meaning of the Name given Him…Emmanuel, God With Us!
God’s great plan would forever wed humanity to God. It is a marvelous thing that God would come in the flesh, the very meaning of Incarnation!
The Son of God came as the Son of Man and yet he was rejected by most of that day! They rejected the very God that made them! Yet we do the same today when we reject Christ as Lord and Savior.
There is no greater privilege than to belong to Christ! The greatest joy comes from the greatest Gift, and Christ gave Himself for humanity so that we could be redeemed from sin! In Christ we see the heart of God; His desire to save and not destroy. When we were lost in sin and needed saving, God found a way to embrace us, to bring us back to spiritual health through Christ who came as a baby!
It is most appropriate that at the time of year when there is the greatest darkness, we celebrate the Greatest Light! He came to where we were, so that one day we could go to where He is!
Jesus came to earth as a baby in a Manger;
Though He came so long ago, today He is no stranger;
He’s the one we sing about the last week of December;
And He’s the One the merchants would all like us to remember:
But Jesus is the King of Kings, He is a Babe no longer;
He’s the Mighty Son of God; Sing it ever stronger;
He’s the King of Kings, He is a Babe no longer;
And He won’t be gone very much longer!
