The Christ of Christmas

Christmas is wet in Signapore. It doesn't snow; it rains. Growing up in a non-Christian family, we didn't celebrate Christmas. But when I was young, my siblings and I, together with a few neighborhood kids, decided to have a Christmas gift exchange. I don't know where we got the idea-maybe from all the TV shows we'd been watchinf. We put our names into a bag, and each of us picked the name of someone to buy a present for. Some of us were happy with the gifts we received, some of us were not; but we were all glad to have recieved presents.
     We didn't realize the perfect gift had been given to us 2,000 years ago by God our Creator. The Bible tells us, " For this is how God loved the world: He gave his one and only Son." ( John 3:16) When I was a teenager, I heard about this gift and accepted Jesus as my Savior.
     I remember celebrating my first Christmas as a believer in Christ. Christmas was special now because I finally understood it's meaning-it's a celebration of God's perfect gift, there; He is a personal God who loves people of all nations and socioeconomic classes. And this personal God expressed His love for me by  dying for me.
     During this festive season- and always-may we continue to fix our eyes on the Christ of Christmas.
     At Bethlehem, God demonstrated that to love is to give.
John 3:16
" For this is how God loved the world: He gave his one and only Son, so that everyone who believes in him will not perish but have eternal life. God sent his Son into the world not to judge the world, but to save the world through him.
      There is no judgement against anyone who believes in him. But anyone who does not believe in him has already been judged for not believing in God's one and only Son. And the judgment is based on this fact: God's light came into the world, but people loved the darkness more than the light, for their actions were evil. All who do evil hate the light and refuse to go near it for fear their sins will be exposed. But those who do what is right come to the light so others can see that they are doing what God wants.