Editor's Notes: Below are a few things about Christmas that I would like to share that have meant something to me for years. I am not the author of these sayings.
My First Christmas in Heaven
I've had my first Christmas in Heaven
A glorious, wonderful day
I stood with the Saints of the ages
Who found Christ, the truth and the way.
I sang with the heavenly choir
Just think, I who so longed to sing
And oh, what celestial music
We brought to our Savior and King.
We sang the glad songs of redemption
How Jesus to Bethlehem came
And how they called His name Jesus
That all might be saved through His name.
We sang once again with the angels
The song that they sang that blest morn
When Shepherds first heard the glad story
That Jesus the Savior was born.
O, dear one, I wish you had been here
No Christmas on earth could compare
With all the rapture and glory
We witnessed in Heaven so fair.
You know how I always loved Christmas
It seemed such a wonderful day
with all of my loved ones around me
The children so happy and gay.
Yes, now I can see why I loved it
And oh, what a joy it will be
When all of my loved ones are with me
To share in the glories I see.
So dear ones on earth here's my greetings
Look up till the day dawn appears
And oh, what a Christmas awaits us
Beyond All our partings and tears.
Reprinted from Baptist Bulletin Service
Christmas X's Out War - For One Day
Editor's Note: The following is abased on an eyewitness account of an incident that occurred the day before Christmas at the Western Front during World War I:
As if by some miracle, the shelling stopped and the mortar and rifle fire ceased.
Only silence....
But men of the North Staffordshire Regiment who exchanged "words of good cheer" with the enemy broke the stillness. Men from Britain and Germany talked to one another across No Man's Land!
A British officer suggested a Volkslied.
The German sang....
Everyone agreed to a truce until midnight of Christmas Day.
Both sides cut through their barbed wire and walked in each other's trenches exchanging food and talking and photographing one another.
Some German soldiers sang "Home Sweet Home", followed by a hymn.
In another part of the trenches, some German soldiers left their positions to offer Christmas greetings to a group of Scots. An officer tried to stop them, but one German said, "But this is Christmas."
No one would or could not stop the brotherhood of Christmas.
And at midnight, both Germans and Britons fired warning shorts: Return to the trenches behind your own lines.
Gradually, the business of trying to kill the enemy returned to normal. But the soldiers of both sides knew that Christmas is not a normal time...It can x out war, if only for a day.
-reprinted
1st Corinthians 13 -- Christmas style
If I decorate my house perfectly with plaid bows, strands of twinkling lights and shiny balls, but do not show love to my family,
I'm just another decorator.
If I slave away in the kitchen, baking dozens of Christmas cookies, preparing gourmet meals and arranging a beautifully adorned table at mealtime, but do not show love to my family, I'm just another cook.
If I work at the soup kitchen, sing carols in the nursing all that I have to charity, but do not show love to my family, it profits me nothing.
If I trim the spruce with shimmering angels and crocheted snowflakes, attend a myriad of holiday parties and sing in the choir's cantata, but do not focus on Christ, I have missed the point.
Love stops the cooking to hug the child.
Love sets aside the decorating to kiss the husband.
Love is kind, though harried and tired.
Love doesn't envy another's home that has coordinated
Christmas china and table linens.
Love doesn't yell at the kids to get out of the way.
Love doesn't give only to those who are able to give in return, but rejoices in giving to those who can't.
Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.
Love never fails. Video games will break; pearl necklaces will be lost; golf clubs will rust, but giving the gift of love will endure.
Be Mindful That Happiness Is Not Based On Possessions, Power, or Prestige, But On Christ And Relationships With People You Love And Respect.
The Virgin Birth of Christ
Allow me to say only a few things here concerning the virgin birth of Jesus. We find it intimated in God's chastisement of Adam and Eve, and the old serpent in the Garden of Eden, when he said the seed of the woman should bruise the serpent's head, and he should bruise her heel. If Christ were to be born in the common course of nature, the Lord would have said the seed of the man should bruise the serpent's head. But he said the seed of the woman. Gen. 3:15. The very first promise of a Redeemer is a strong point in the argument of the Virgin birth. No human could have any power or virtue, to redeem the rest of humanity. Then the prophet Isaiah, hundreds of years before the birth of Christ, writes, "Therefore the Lord Himself shall give you a sign. Behold a virgin shall conceive and bear a son, and shall call his name Immanual." Isa. 7:14.
"And the angel said, Joseph, fear not to take unto thee Mary thy wife; for that which is conceived in her is of the Holy Ghost. And she shall bring forth a son, and thou shall call his name Jesus for he shall save his people from their sins," Matt. 1:20, 21. And then the angel in verse 23 quoted the prophecy of Isa. 12: 7, "Behold a virgin shall conceive and bring forth a son," etc. Doesn't all this look like that Christ was divine; that He was indeed the Son of God. When Christ was baptized in the river Jordon, the Holy Spirit descended in a bodily shape like a dove and abode upon him "That was miraculous, and God spoke out from heaven and said, "This is my beloved Son in whom I am well pleased." Yes, beyond any sensible doubt as the Centurion said, "Truly this was the Son of God." Matt. 27:54. Don't try to do away with His divinity - then we have no Savior on this day.
Reprinted, the late Rev. M.S. Smith