hands made for wood

I just thought as Christmas is in the next few days I would tell everyone what the true meaning of Christmas really is if you don't know it already. So here it is the true meaning of Christmas!

While they were there, the time came for the baby to be born, 7and she gave birth to her firstborn, a son. She wrapped him in cloths and placed him in a manger, because there was no room for them in the inn.
The Shepherds and the Angels

8And there were shepherds living out in the fields nearby, keeping watch over their flocks at night. 9An angel of the Lord appeared to them, and the glory of the Lord shone around them, and they were terrified. 10But the angel said to them, "Do not be afraid. I bring you good news of great joy that will be for all the people. 11Today in the town of David a Savior has been born to you; he is Christ[a] the Lord. 12This will be a sign to you: You will find a baby wrapped in cloths and lying in a manger."

13Suddenly a great company of the heavenly host appeared with the angel, praising God and saying,
14"Glory to God in the highest,
and on earth peace to men on whom his favor rests."
15When the angels had left them and gone into heaven, the shepherds said to one another, "Let's go to Bethlehem and see this thing that has happened, which the Lord has told us about." 16So they hurried off and found Mary and Joseph, and the baby, who was lying in the manger. 17When they had seen him, they spread the word concerning what had been told them about this child, 18and all who heard it were amazed at what the shepherds said to them. 19But Mary treasured up all these things and pondered them in her heart. 20The shepherds returned, glorifying and praising God for all the things they had heard and seen, which were just as they had been told.

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I can do all things through Christ who gives me strength.

God bless!
Levi

woodman42

Wonderful story ain't it?
Merry Christman Hands.

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Did you say tool sale?

joasis

This was in the Oklahoman yesterday....long read, but good.

"And suddenly there was with the angel a multitude of the heavenly host praising God, and saying, ‘Glory to God in the highest, and on Earth peace, good will toward men.' ”


— Luke 8:13-14
The Rev. Jim Shepherd of Goodrich United Methodist Church issued a spirited challenge to his Norman congregation at the beginning of Advent.
Look for signs of Christmas, he said, daring them to peer beyond the baubles, bright lights and bags of goodies that have come to typify the season.
Search for the good deeds, the seasonal cheer, he urged. Find the peace that should be the focal point of Christmas.
Peace on Earth — Shepherd and other clergy and scholars agree — is a phrase laced with irony in so many ways today.
The Iraq war and turmoil in other regions of the world serve to show that hostility often reigns. Media headlines remind everyone of chaos in their midst. Tense relationships and troubled people in homes, in the workplace and even in places of worship sometimes erupt in violence.
And yet peace arrived more than 2,000 years ago with the birth of Jesus, said John Harrison, professor of New Testament and ministry at Oklahoma Christian University.
Harrison of Oklahoma City said the angel's message that makes up part of the traditional Christmas story in the Gospel of Luke was not a promise of things to come.
Rather "it is a declaration from heaven's perspective of what has happened with the coming of Jesus,” Harrison said.
"From the angel's perspective, peace has come to Earth, to those who God has favored, those who accepted this news.”
Said the Rev. Bobby Kelly: "Christmas reminds us God brings peace in the birth of a child. Who could have imagined that this would be the way God would act to bring peace?”

Irony from the beginning
Kelly, a Southern Baptist preacher who is Ruth Dickinson associate professor of religion at Oklahoma Baptist University in Shawnee, said Jesus' birth brought about the possibility of peace between God and man, "the ultimate broken relationship,” and men with each other. "God ‘in-fleshing' Himself in Jesus, is, I think, above all about making peace,” Kelly said.
However, the prophecy of Jesus' arrival brought trouble, he said.
"Ironically, almost immediately, the birth of this child caused violence,” Kelly said. Feeling that his kingdom was threatened by the prophecy, King Herod ordered the slaughter of Jewish male infants, "so the irony is that with this great act of God making peace with his creation, comes violence.”
Kelly said the slaughter of the innocents at the birth of Christ should serve as a reminder to Christians today that peace-making is not often immediate, but rather a process.
"There's always been violence. There's always been oppression. I'm not sure you could argue that the world has gotten better. You thought that until World War I, and then there was World War II. The Murrah Building bombing, that's not something that anyone could have fathomed. Then six years later, the towers (World Trade Center)went down,” Kelly said, his voice trailing off.
"Watching our sons and daughters go off to Afghanistan and Iraq also brings violence home, but individuals can find peace with God and each other,” he said. "In the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus said, ‘blessed are the peacemakers.'”

Peace at Christmas and beyond
Both Kelly and Harrison said they are aware that some are skeptical of the notion of peace on Earth. Whether it seems far-fetched or not, Christians have a duty to pursue a lifestyle of peace, they said. "Will there ever be peace? It's a question I think everybody's asking, and for those of us who are followers of Christ, we need to do everything possible to bring about peace,” Kelly said. "God has already acted to begin the process.”
Kelly said people can't see peace because of the violence in recent years, and "we're people that like to see things. It takes faith to believe that God will act and bring an end to violence and defeat all forces of evil.”
But as Christians celebrate Jesus' birth, they should be reminded "that God can act in such a profound way that our whole world can be turned upside down.
"Your circumstances can cause you to lose hope, but the Christmas story reminds us that God can do something beyond our imagination to bring peace.”
Harrison agreed.
He said Christians should try to exercise God's "shalom” or peace at Christmas and beyond. Barriers to accepting Jesus' arrival as the ultimate peacemaker must be overcome, Harrison said.
"I think we as Christians have a hard time accepting that. We are still anxious. We still respond to the world with anxiety, with hostility and with vengeance,” he said.
"But if peace has come as Jesus demonstrates through His life and teachings, I respond to my enemies with love. I pray for them.”
And though Christmas itself can bring a lot of stress and anxiety, Christians can take notes from the Christmas story outlined by Luke to guide their efforts to walk in peace.
Harrison said the context of Luke's Gospel, which he said was probably written around 70 A.D., was a period marked by incidents spurred by religious zealots. Christians were seen as a sort of Jewish sect and, as Luke outlined, were not zealots because they had no reason to be.
"Christians, according to Luke, didn't have to start a fight with Rome in order to bring about God's kingdom,” Harrison said.
"Part of the enigma of Christianity is that they were not trying to bring about that kingdom by destroying Romans. I think what Luke would expect of us today is for us to be at peace.
"We are promised that peace has arrived, and the opportunity to align our hearts and actions to that reality is here.”

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