The right mixture for Christmas

Christmas pudding! For many of us it’s an essential part of Christmas dinner. Rich, fruity, gently spiced, steamed for hours and perhaps topped with flaming brandy! When you cut into the pudding you see some of the ingredients that went into the mixture – sultanas, raisins, currants, candied peel and almonds. But there’s much more in the pudding which you may not easily see. Yet every ingredient is important; every one helps to make your Christmas pudding just right!

The right mixture for life?

Many people treat life as if it’s like a Christmas pudding. Perhaps you do? Lots of ingredients go into the mix, and you hope it will turn out just right. The important ingredients might include a happy family, good friends, good health, a steady job, a comfortable home, or a relaxing holiday each year. Then Christmas comes round with its nativity scenes and carols. For a few weeks you have another ingredient to add to all the others: God can have a little part in the mixture of life.

The right place for God

But God cannot be treated as just one more ingredient in your life. He must come first; this is the place he rightly deserves. The events of the first Christmas show us why. God is our awesome Creator. We should love and obey him – but we don’t. This is sin. God is right to judge us for our sin. But at the first Christmas God displayed his great and undeserved love towards us. The Bible says:

‘The Father has sent his Son to be the Saviour of the world.’ (1 John 4 vs. 14)

The Lord Jesus Christ, who we remember at Christmas as the baby in Bethlehem, is God’s own Son. He is ‘God with us.’ (Matthew 1 vs. 23) Jesus didn’t stay a helpless baby; he grew to be a man. He took God’s penalty for our sin on himself when he died on the cross. Now, raised to life, Jesus is the Saviour of all who turn from their sin and put their faith in him. How wonderful God is! What a great gift he has given us – Jesus, the Saviour. Turn to him today, confess your sin to him, and give him first place in your life – as he rightly deserves.

 

Please get in touch today to find out more, or why not come along? You would be most welcome at our Christmas services – Sunday 21st December, 5:00pm, or Christmas Day, 10:00am – or any of our regular Sunday services. See What’s On for full details.