Thought Quotient

Fear not. Good news. Christ is come.

*Each Christmas through Angel Tree, a ministry of Prison Fellowship, church volunteers provide Christmas gifts for nearly half a million children of prisoners. To promote goodwill within families, gifts are presented as being from the prisoner-parent, who “signed up” for his or her children to receive the gifts. The artwork here is by a gift recipient who responded to Angel Tree’s request for drawings of “Christmas Angels.” For information on how you can get involved with Angel Tree, call 1-800-55-ANGEL or go to www.angeltree.org

Christmas is the most astounding fact in the history of the world. Nothing is so incredible, so amazing, as the historic event 2,000 years ago when the eternal, everlasting God came down to live in human flesh as a baby. Imagine. The Creator, the infinite, incomprehensible, ineffable God—the One who merely waved His hand and the Milky Way sprayed into existence—that One entered the world a helpless infant in a stable rich with the odor of cow dung and dirt. But what if He had not come?

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Jaime Jamgochian has uploaded a Christmas greeting for her fans and offers us all a free download of “O Come, O Come Emmanuel” :

• “O Come, O Come Emmanuel” - Free Download

Sounds Good!

Many struggle with the idea of God because they wrestle against “the problem of pain” — How can a good God allow evil to continue? The surprising answer: because He loves us. He could have ended all evil before the fruit of the forbidden tree digested in Adam’s stomach. Let’s not forget that the evil we would have God put an end to includes you and me. We brought, and continue to bring, evil upon ourselves and the world, and He would be entirely justified to condemn us to suffer the twisted mess we have made of His creation. But… He loves us.

What an awful predicament. God must punish sin. The final penalty of sin is eternal death. But to carry out the sentence, God loses the very people He loves. Just as one man led all of humanity into rebellion, another must reconcile us. But who? Who among us does not deserve the penalty of sin? And if one sinless person could be found, what mere mortal would have the power to die the death you and I deserve, yet survive the process so that He could continue to represent us? Why, only a human who is also God could do that! Two millennia ago, God answered the anguished cry of humanity by making “the problem of evil” His own. God Almighty became Immanuel, “God with us.” He lived as we live, suffered as we suffer, died as we die, yet without sin. And He, being the God-man, overcame the power of death in order to give us eternal life.

The plan is complete. Remember Jesus’s words on the cross? “It is finished!” Mission accomplished. Nothing left for God to do, except allow His creation time to respond. He patiently waits … but time is running out. He will not wait forever. He will one day close the door of opportunity, either by your own physical death or by bringing all earthly history to an end.

As you ponder the humanity of the first Christmas, remember that it is an invitation to slow down and think deeper. I invite you to touch the infant skin of the God-man with your imagination. I invite you to wonder as the shepherds wondered and to worship as the wise men did. I invite you to allow the God-man, Jesus, to take your own “problem of pain” and make it His. If you can accept my invitation, you will receive the greatest Christmas present on earth: God’s indescribable gift.

- Charles R. Swindoll, Insight for Living Ministries

As Alathea told us about a trip to Honduras earlier this year, we are reminded that a gift is more than something material…it means so much more. They shared an experience they had with Alexander - a little boy from Honduras that they sponsor.

We had just started sponsoring a couple of months right before we went on the trip. So we went shopping for him because you could take a couple of presents. When we went to see Maritza, it was easy because she’s a girl - and we’re all girls - and we picked girly things and it was easy. And then we had this little boy and were like, “Oh no! What do we buy?” On his information, it said he liked soccer. So, we grabbed a soccer ball and took it to him. He just lit up! We played soccer all afternoon. It was a beautiful day. The moment that we got there, we met with his family and his mom said, “Thank you for helping my family.” And she would tell him throughout the day, “Tell them thank you” or “Give them a hug.” All day long she kept instigating him…and he would. He was just this sweet, tender hearted little boy. But we were out playing soccer with him that afternoon and him and Mandee had went out there ahead of everybody. And he got out there and he had the soccer ball - and he dropped the soccer ball and looked up at her and said, “Gracias!” He just gave her a big ole hug! It was totally not because his mom told him too - and it wasn’t for the soccer ball. It was because we were helping his family be who they were supposed to be. It’s just so humbling to be a part of that situation. What seems so insignificant to us, they’re doing so much with. It just seems that we waste so much, and they are treasuring everything that they have.
- Cristi Johnson of Alathea

Related Links:

• www.compassion.com
• www.alathea.com
• Alathea partners with Ronda Paulson for women’s conferences, retreats
• Check out the new ALATHEA store
• Music Quotient 2004 interview archives: Alathea

Check out today’s BreakPoint commentary:

Unless You Repent - Questions of Disaster and Judgment

The responsibility of repentance rests first and foremost on the Church of Christ. Can you imagine what might happen in this country and around the world if Christians were to demonstrate what it means to repent of our own sins? I think we ought to find out.

I don’t know whether all these cataclysmic events that are going on are God’s way of judging us or not. No one can know that. But I do know one thing: We evangelicals can often be very good at showing hubris. Well, maybe it is time as this year draws to an end that we ought to try instead a healthy dose of repentance.

Along those same lines, here’s a quote by Henry Blackaby:

But when the world saw God’s people realizing how serious sin was in their lives, it brought them under severe conviction of their own sin, and atheists and agnostics watching God’s people confess their sin and getting their lives right cried out, “Oh, me too! If that person cries out to God and realizes how serious it is, how much more do I need to cry out?” There is written testimony of agnostics coming to know Christ in the middle of a meeting where God’s people realized the seriousness of their sin, and the agnostics cried out to God, “Oh, God, have mercy on me! Blot out my transgressions. Wash me thoroughly. Cleanse me. Deal with me. Create in me a clean heart, O God, and renew a steadfast spirit within me.”