Christmas 2008
Have you noticed that Christmas seems to get more expensive every year? You tell yourself you are not going to spend as
much this time, but how many of us end up spending more?
I wonder how much food gets thrown away at this time of year? You buy a little bit of this and a little bit of that in the weeks running up to the big day, and before you know it you have a lot of everything!
But of course this Christmas is going to be different. This is the Credit Crunch Christmas. We are going to have to tighten our belts a little, the money is not going to go as far as it did last year.
And yet still most of us will still try to be generous. We will want to give gifts to those we love, especially the children of the family.
Those gifts will be freely given as usual. We will not hand them over and ask for payment! Yet, even during a Credit Crunch every free gift has to be paid for by someone. Money that has been earned and saved will be spent in order to make other people happy.
Did you know that God is offering you a wonderful free gift this Christmas? Now this may come as a surprise to some. You might think God is all about religion; what he wants from you is your money, or he must want you to give something up.
But that is to miss the real message of Christmas, which is all about what God wants to freely give you. We read this in the Gospel of John chapter 3 verse 16: ‘For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have everlasting life.’
You see, just as the gifts we give or receive have to cost someone something, so it is with God. He offers us the gift of everlasting life, that is life as it is meant to be. But in order to make this offer to us he had to send his Son into the world.
So the Christmas message tells us how that happened. It tells us the baby in the manger is no ordinary child. As one of our carols puts it: ‘He came down to earth from heaven, who is God and Lord of all’.
He came as a little baby to live as a man, and ultimately die on a cross. But he was willing to pay this price so God might be able to offer us this free gift that cost him so much.
We would love to be able to tell you more about God’s wonderful free gift. Would you like to join us at our Candlelight Carol Service? We will sing some favourite carols, have contributions from children and hear a short talk about Jesus.
We would like to invite you to our Christmas services:
Candlelight Carol Service on Sunday 21st December at 6:00 p.m.
Christmas Morning Service at 10:00 a.m.
Or to any of our usual Sunday services at 11:00 a.m. and 6:00 p.m.
For further information, or to find out about our regular meetings, including those for children, teenagers and the over 60’s please phone Richard Wigham on 01443 225310
Tabor Baptist Church
Llantrisant – Opposite
the Cross Keys Hotel