A Promise to Give You Hope!

This time of year many people feel the pain of rejection and abandonment. Maybe you are one of them. Maybe you feel the sting of hopelessness, that you are not a worthy person, that no one could love you.

Well, banish that thought! It comes from the pit of hell!

Keep your heart open to the love that comes from the only One who REALLY matters: God Himself.
Over and over He extends the olive branch to anyone who will accept His Christmas gift--Jesus Christ.
Jesus Himself stands at the door of your heart and asks permission to come in.
All you have to do is open the door.

And here's the sweetest part of all for those who have known rejection . . . He promises "Never will I leave you; never will I forsake you."

And because of who He is--God cannot lie. Your future is safe with Him.

A Promise to Lift Your Spririts

They say that depression is highest around the holidays, especially Christmas. Having experienced a "low" over Thanksgiving, I now understand what a downer depression can be.

Could God ever want me to be depressed?
Then where does depression originate?
And what is the antidote for it?

Consider this: "The joy of the Lord is your strength" (Nehemiah 8:10).

When we lack His joy, what can we do about it?
We can do what we always do when we fall short of something we need--draw on the Lord's never-ending supply. Whether that's love or wisdom or peace or . . . .

How do we do that?

Draw near to God and He will draw near to you!
Ask in faith, believing!
Put on the whole armor of God that you may be able to stand against the darts of the enemy.
Remember: greater is He that is in you than he that is in the world.

Do you believe these things only in theory? Put them into practice.
Choose the joy of the Lord over the gloom and doom of the enemy.

The joy of the Lord is your strength!

Now that was a promise!

In Luke 2:9-14 some shepherds tended their flocks by night. All of a sudden an angel of the Lord appeared to them with a message from God. He told them they'd find their Savior, their promised Messiah, wrapped in swaddling clothes and lying in a manger.


What? It seemed inconceivable that Israel's deliverer would come as a baby, and a poor one at that!

Yet the shepherds received the news and hastened to Bethlehem to see what the Lord had made known to them. And, having seen, they rushed to tell others--glorifying and praising God.


What if they hadn't believed the angel of the Lord? What if they hadn't gone to see for themselves? Or, having gone, what if they hadn't bothered to tell others?

What was your response when you heard the Good News about Jesus Christ?

THE Promise - Genesis 3:15 (continued)

"And I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your offspring and hers; he will crush your head, and you will strike his heel."

Jesus crushed the serpent's head when he rose from the dead. And he continues to crush the serpent's head every time we his people choose God's way instead of our own. 

At Christmas the serpent is relentless in tempting us to make wrong choices.  When our feelings have been hurt, we want to strike back instead of turning the other cheek or offering to walk the second mile. Yet we know that, as Christians, we need to imitate Christ.


What are some practical ways you've discovered to overcome evil with good? Do you continue to send Christmas cards to those who have wounded you? Invite them to dinner? Pray for them? What?

 

THE Promise - Genesis 3:15

Time to move on to a new promise--the best promise of all!

It took place in the Garden of Eden after the Fall. When God saw man's hopeless condition, he promised to send help, with a capital H. To the serpent, he said:

And I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your offspring and hers; he will crush your head, and you will strike his heel.

And so it came to pass that God sent our Savior, the one who would crush our enemy's head.

What has this promise meant to you over the years?