Dear Weekly Readers! May God truly grant each of you a most Blessed Christmas Season. I thank you all so much for your prayers for The Foreign Mission of the ALC, our families, churches, leaders, and all of our people! God has blessed us so much by allowing us to share together with you in so many countries around the world! We desire to continue to share the greatest Gift of all, our Lord Jesus Christ!
This week we have first a Christmas prayer from a Christian family, followed by an article from a pastor! Please enjoy! JR
Our Christmas Prayer!
This is our Christmas prayer, we pray that you would find and know the Lord Jesus Christ, not just the baby in a manger or one who heeled the blind, but that this Jesus would become everything to you, your hope in this life and in the life to come. We pray that you are watching with a longing heart for His return and you have great joy and peace in your heart that says "Come Lord Jesus come". The time is short the day of grace is today and if you wait tomorrow it may be too late. We pray that this is not your cry, "Too late too late I waited too late". We pray you would find this gift of God Son and he would be opened into your heart by the preached gospel that your sins are forgiven in the name and blood of Jesus. May the gift of God’s His Son, never stops giving, remain yours this Christmas and forever. We pray this in the name of Jesus. Amen!
The Sunnarborg’s
Rhinelander, WI
CHRIST, THE LIGHT OF THE WORLD
“The people that walked in darkness have seen a great light: they that dwell in the land of the shadow of death, upon them hath the light shined..” (Isaiah 9:2)
“…God, who commanded the light to shine out of darkness, hath shined in our hearts, to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ..” (2 Corinthians 4:6)
Lights adorn our homes, churches, stores, and streets here in America at Christmas time. Our nation and state capitols celebrate “a lighting of the Christmas tree.” Homes, churches, and stores are decorated. Merchants base their margin of profit for the year on sales during the Christmas season. Many are now saying, “Happy Holidays” and the Christmas trees ought to be called “Holiday trees.” So while on the surface there is much excitement, celebration, and anticipated joy with the exchanging and opening of gifts, there is an emptiness and darkness in the heart. All the lights, tinsel, and toys provide no lasting peace and contentment, for that can be found only in a personal relationship with Christ.
Thank God, He has not yet given up on mankind! The darkness of which the Prophet Isaiah spoke still shrouds the soul and spirit of people all over the world. Mankind has languished in gloom and doom from nearly the dawn of human history. Adam and Eve, believing Satan’s lie, were convinced they not only would have a more complete knowledge of good and evil but would, in fact, become like God (Gen. 3:5). But like an eclipse of the sun at noonday, mankind was plunged into deep darkness.
Nonetheless, we can celebrate because Christ, the Light of the world, is come and has revealed Himself as our Savior-God. John bears witness to this truth in the opening verses of his gospel when he testifies of Christ that “In him was life and the life was the light of men, and the light shineth in darkness; and the darkness comprehended it not” (Jn. 1:5,6) Almighty God is faced by two powerful strains of resistance in all of mankind to his love. On the one hand, the darkness of unbelief in the humant heart cannot comprehend God’s truth. Rightly has Luther attested to this in his explanation of the Third Article of the Creed when he wrote: “I cannot by my own reason or strength believe in Jesus Christ my Lord or come to him.” On the other hand, this formidable obstacle of unbelief in a person is not invincible. Darkness cannot overcome the light because “the weakness of God is stronger than men” (1 Cor. 1:25). So while we by nature cannot comprehend, grasp, or understand the power and grace of God in the Lord Jesus Christ, the Holy Ghost calls us by the Gospel, as Luther went on to say. Our Almighty God, through the Spirit-empowered proclamation of the Gospel, can shine into our hearts revealing both the darkness within us but, at the same time, the preciousness of life in the Lord Jesus Christ as we are granted grace to realize that our sins are forgiven in the Name and through the power of the blood of our Savior.
Thus in this glorious light, we can live as “children of light” (Eph. 5:8) in the darkness of this world. And it is as such children of light that those living in darkness can be drawn to the Light of Christ and they will become light-bearers, as well! So may this Christmas Light so shine that men will see the presence of Christ in us and through us; all to the glory of God!
HAVE A BLESSED CHRISTMAS!
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