Christmas

⁶ For to us a child is born, 
   to us a son is given, 
   and the government will be on his shoulders. 
And he will be called 
   Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, 
   Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace. 
--Isaiah 9:6

What Christmas especially means to me this year:

• We can approach the throne of grace with confidence (Hebrews 4:16).  Because of Jesus, we are now able to boldly approach God and have an intimate relationship with Him.  We no longer will be struck down because of our sinfulness and God's holiness, but we have been justified and have Jesus' imputed righteousness.
• The God of the universe became flesh and made his home among us (John 1:14).  He descended to our level to help us to see God and His love.  He went through the stages of development, even beginning as a helpless baby.  He came to earth knowing full well what the end of His live would be.  He came down knowing that he would be misunderstood and hurt, even by His closest friends.  He came knowing that He would be rejected and wrongfully punished.  He knew that He would experience separation from God for the first time of His life.  He knew he would be flogged unjustly.  He knew one of his closest friends would deny him; another would turn Him in.  Knowing all this, Jesus still came down and willingly subjected Himself to the will of the Father.
• Jesus endured the pain of life on earth and in crucifixion for the joy to come (Hebrews 12:2).  He had the eternal perspective:  we endure temporary pain now for eternal joy later.
• We no longer have to continually offer the sacrifices of animals because Jesus' sacrifice paid for all sins for all time (Hebrews 9:13-14).  We all can take hold of Jesus' sacrifice paying for all of our sins if we open our hearts to Him.
• Jesus lived on earth and experienced trials of all sorts and thus understands the depths of trials in our lives (Hebrews 4:15).

Without Jesus, I could never have a personal relationship with God.  Without Jesus, I would have had to try hard to earn salvation and still inevitably fail.

With Jesus, I have abundant life, both here on earth and in eternity.

Thank you, Jesus, for your love for me.

Merry Christmas!

Freedom

“We are not fundamentally free; external circumstances are not in our hands, they are in God’s hands, the one thing in which we are free is in our personal relationship to God. We are not responsible for the circumstances we are in, but we are responsible for the way we allow those circumstances to affect us; we can either allow them to get on top of us, or we can allow them to transform us into what God wants us to be.”  (Oswald Chambers, Conformed to His Image, 354 L)

Illuminate

I recently returned from the 2011 West Coast Epic Conference.  Students from all across California, and Oregon, Minnesota, Hawaii, and many other places gathered together to meet God.  It was so exciting to see so many students passionately seeking God and so eager to hear from God. :)  And also to see students mobilized and sent out around San Francisco during the day of outreach.

The theme verse was 1 Peter 2:9--But you are a chosen people a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people belonging to God, that you may declare the praises of him who called you out of darkness into his wonderful light.

Here are some media highlights from the conference:

• Epic West Coast Conference in action video:  http://www.facebook.com/video/?id=155054654532795
• Epic West Coast Conference Highlight slideshow:  http://www.facebook.com/video/video.php?v=845720642048
• Epic West Coast Conference Illuminate video:  http://www.facebook.com/video/video.php?v=819475742037&comments

This video is one about a student's changed life that was shown at the Epic Conference that happened in Dallas, TX over the same weekend:  http://vimeo.com/18849861