Happy Birthday to Jesus!

It is the Sunday before Christmas here in Cape Town.

It is also sunny and hot. Beautiful weather, but not a white Christmas in sight!

Today I will finish a series of messages about the gifts we received when God sent His Son to earth. The church wanted to use this holiday/summer month to present an invitation to accept Christ in each message. Using the Christmas message for evangelism...what a great idea! That's what Christmas is all about anyway! At the end of each message we challenged the people to use that gift to give a gift back to Jesus since it is His birthday. Most the time we challenged people to give Christ their lives.

I think you can understand the gift He gave us as I present the list we have used, but, can you figure out what He wants from us that will correspond with each gift?

"Grace"...God's Riches At Christ's Expense

"Christmas Day"...What we have today because we celebrate this day.

"The love of God"..."God so loved the world that He gave..." Nothing can take that from us!

"Forgiveness"..."forgiveness in the name of Jesus!"

"The message to Joseph"..."You will name him Jesus for He will save His people from their sins"

"Joy"...in Christ not in things..."that our joy may be complete"

"Life"..."In Him was life..." Is Jesus enough? He wants us to have abundant life!

"Immanuel"...God with us!

"Peace"..."Glory to God in the highest and on earth peace, good will toward men"

"Light"...from "Let there be light" to "I am the light" to "you are the light"

"The Shepherds"...who went out praising God.

"The Wise Men..."who returned a different way"...different men as well?

You can read the manuscripts of most of these messages by going to the Fish Hoek Baptist Church web site indicated at the right.

On Christmas we will join with some friends and have a Christmas meal after the morning service at the church. Our time next Tuesday will be a great contrast with last Friday when Barb, Rich and I went to the homeless center and served the men their Christmas dinner after a brief thought about Christmas. It is very hard to wish men who live on the streets and eat out of trash cans a Merry Christmas. Will the day be any different than other days? Do they have any hope? Any joy? Can they be merry without a bottle of something? So sad to see them dirty and alone, hanging around on the corners and in the parks. But, when you reach out to them, they respond with their desire to be left alone. I spoke about Jesus, the very reason for the season...but, did they get any of it or were they just waiting to be fed?

So, this year we will have ostrich for Christmas eve instead of our traditional fondue and then on Christmas day we will be with some friends and have lamb, chicken and ham. I am delighted. The last Christmas we had in Africa, when we were in West Africa, we had goat.

We trust your Christmas is very special as well and filled with Jesus! It is neat that we are all invited to His birthday party, but in different places all around the world. We trust the party at your house will be a blast!

Ron and Barb