Job 34:14-15
“If He should determine to do so,
If He should gather to Himself His spirit and His breath,
All flesh would perish together,
And man would return to dust.
I saw an article in the news yesterday entitled "Secret Santa". It was about some staff who had organised a Christmas party on the premises of their employer, without asking or inviting him. They thought they had concealed their festivities from him, but didn't realise that a CCTV had caught it all on camera! He had observed it all from a distance!
Of course, we don't know how good an employer he was, but, as an onlooker, it looks very hurtful to be using someone's premises, on their time and expense and not give even the courtesy of an invite or ask their permission if it was ok to go ahead with it.
Then it put me in mind of the Christmas period we are in. Slowly but surely over recent years even the word Christmas is being expunged and replaced by "happy holidays", just in case we offend someone of a different viewpoint. Even the exiled "royalty" of the pseudo dukedom of Montecito, released their card yesterday announcing "Happy Holidays".
Wake up everyone, God lends us His very breath. We don't depend on a ventilator in the NHS for our lungs! The oxygen they provide is on loan from the Creator.
If He wanted to, He could withdraw that life giving unction at any moment and that would be the end of us!
Yet we continue to go down a spiralling path of excluding our Lord from "the party". It's His Creation, we are the work of His Hands. It is truly twice His because, as we celebrate right now, He came to this earth to redeem it.
John 1:9 The True Light that gives light to everyone was coming into the world. 10 He was in the world, and though the world was made through Him, the world did not recognize Him. 11 He came to that which was His own, but His own did not receive Him. 12 Yet to all who did receive Him, to those who believed in His name, He gave the right to become children of God— 13 children born not of natural descent, nor of human decision or a husband’s will, but born of God.14 The Word became flesh and made His dwelling among us. We have seen His glory, the glory of the One and only Son, who came from the Father, full of Grace and Truth.
Send out your invite now to Jesus and include Him in the celebration that He caused. Remember He has His own CCTV, nothing escapes His gaze. It's not Santa that is watching out to see if we've been good. No, Jesus sees our wretchedness. He knows that we haven't been good and can't manage without His Saving Grace poured out on the Cross.
Like the old hymn says:
I'll praise him while he lends me breath,
and when my voice is lost in death
praise shall employ my noblest powers;
my days of praise are never past
while life and thought and being last
or immortality endures.
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