Announcement

Collapse

Deeper Waters Forum Guidelines

Notice – The ministries featured in this section of TheologyWeb are guests of this site and in some cases not bargaining for the rough and tumble world of debate forums, though sometimes they are. Additionally, this area is frequented and highlighted for guests who also very often are not acclimated to debate fora. As such, the rules of conduct here will be more strict than in the general forum. This will be something within the discretion of the Moderators and the Ministry Representative, but we simply ask that you conduct yourselves in a manner considerate of the fact that these ministries are our invited guests. You can always feel free to start a related thread in general forum without such extra restrictions. Thank you.

Deeper Waters is founded on the belief that the Christian community has long been in the shallow end of Christianity while there are treasures of the deep waiting to be discovered. Too many in the shallow end are not prepared when they go out beyond those waters and are quickly devoured by sharks. We wish to aid Christians to equip them to navigate the deeper waters of the ocean of truth and come up with treasure in the end.

We also wish to give special aid to those often neglected, that is, the disabled community. This is especially so since our founders are both on the autism spectrum and have a special desire to reach those on that spectrum. While they are a special emphasis, we seek to help others with any disability realize that God can use them and that they are as the Psalmist says, fearfully and wonderfully made.

General TheologyWeb forum rules: here.
See more
See less

Christmas Thoughts

Collapse
X
 
  • Filter
  • Time
  • Show
Clear All
new posts

  • Christmas Thoughts

    Merry Christmas!

    The link can be found here.

    The text is as follows:

    This blog is late in the day, but hey. I just got done awhile ago watching Pixels in my own house here. (Yeah. My folks did come through there.) Now that that is done, I figure I'll write some about what Christmas means. I would like to really tell you that I'm a pious and holy guy and I just think about Jesus constantly on this day. I would like to tell you that, but there's a commandment against lying so I really can't.

    And as I thought about it some today, I wonder if I treat Christmas like any other day, and if that's really a bad thing if I do or not. As one in ministry, I do think about Jesus many times throughout the day and theology and history are favorite areas of mine. I wonder how many out there do say they spend Christmas thinking about Jesus, but aside from Easter, that's the only time they really think about Him. Perhaps Christmas is a time where many of us can put out the lights on the lawn to show how much we are celebrating the birth of Christ while throughout the rest of the year we're treating Him like He's no big deal.

    Of course, I'm not opposed to people lighting up their lawns on Christmas. My family happens to make it a point to go out looking at Christmas lights every year and sadly, it's harder and harder to find really good displays of Christmas lights. As I ponder it, I wonder how many people are saying they are celebrating the birth of Christ, but inside, there's a husband who isn't repenting of an addiction to internet pornography, or there's a couple who has forgotten the meaning of marriage and is on the brink of divorce, or there is someone in the house who hates His fellow man. Now to an extent, we're all hypocrites of course, but I wonder how much that could be going on. How many of us are putting our best foot forward, like we are prone to do every Sunday, while hiding everything that's wrong.

    Yesterday I had written about Christmas as a declaration of war. It's a contrast to think about putting your best foot forward when here on Earth we had the Prince of Peace roaming around, but look at His life and try to find where He had some peace. What He wouldn't have given for some! From his very birth He had people who were trying to kill Him. His disciples who should have been His most trusted companions were often embarrassments to Him who spent their time arguing among themselves over who was the greatest and when these men who wanted to be the greatest had trouble show up, they turned tail and ran. The life of the Prince of Peace eventually led to a violent death on a cross.

    And victory was won a few days later at an empty tomb.

    In fact, Jesus came to people who did not put their best foot forward. Jesus came and spent most of His time with the rejects and the nobodies of society. He spent His time with the people no one wanted to spend time with. He could have been a respectable rabbi and spent time with the other rabbis, but He did not. He hung out with the riffraff, the ones that were rejected by those rabbis.

    Maybe I'm not really alone in saying that Christmas can often be like other days. About the only main difference is on this day you exchange gifts and spend more time with family. Frankly, I'm also at the age where the gifts are nice, but they don't really matter as much any more. Now sometimes I do miss the wonder I had as a child and the big Christmas Eve gatherings that used to take place where we would exchange gifts and be up till around midnight, but that was not meant to last forever and maybe someday Allie and I will have a family of our own that we can start new traditions with, but until then, I do hope to treasure the time, especially with my own wife, which is in a remarkable way when I consider it the new family unit that is the joining of two families that would have been totally separate but bound by the love of the two children.

    And maybe tonight when I go to bed, I will remember that I can celebrate peacefully because of the good that came about from the Prince of Peace. How different would my world be today if there had never been a Christmas to begin with? Did Jesus come for more than Christmas lights and for exchanging gifts and for even spending time with family? If I didn't have all of those, would I still be able to have what Jesus came for?

    Yes, and so could you.

    Merry Christmas.

    In Christ,
    Nick Peters

Related Threads

Collapse

Topics Statistics Last Post
Started by Apologiaphoenix, 03-15-2024, 10:19 PM
14 responses
75 views
1 like
Last Post rogue06
by rogue06
 
Started by Apologiaphoenix, 03-13-2024, 10:13 PM
6 responses
61 views
0 likes
Last Post Apologiaphoenix  
Started by Apologiaphoenix, 03-12-2024, 09:36 PM
1 response
23 views
0 likes
Last Post rogue06
by rogue06
 
Started by Apologiaphoenix, 03-11-2024, 10:19 PM
0 responses
22 views
2 likes
Last Post Apologiaphoenix  
Started by Apologiaphoenix, 03-08-2024, 11:59 AM
5 responses
50 views
0 likes
Last Post Apologiaphoenix  
Working...
X