THE CHRIST CHILD ...THE STORY OF GOD'S LOVE

 

                                                                      

                                                   

                    A MAUVE-SPATTERED SUNSET

        Photo by Carole Castagna  ©9/2007

 

A chilly night with

myriad stars in the sky...

one lone star shines brightest to point the way...

 

The Christ-Child is born.

Psalm 8: 3,4,5

"When I consider Your heavens, the work of Your fingers, the moon and the stars, which You have ordained, What is man that You are mindful of him? 

or the son of man that You visit him?

You have made him a little lower than the angels

and You have crowned him with glory and honor."

Yet he was born in a manger to become the man of sorrows 

to die for our sins on a cross

on Calvary.

 

John 10: 14,15

"I am the good shepherd and I know my sheep and am known by my own.

And I lay down My life for My sheep.

 

John 10: 27,28

My sheep know my voice and they hear Me and they follow Me.

And I give them eternal life, and they shall never perish; neither shall anyone snatch them out of My hand...My Father, who has given them to me, is greater than all; and no one is able to snatch them out of My Father's hand.  I and My Father are one."

 

David wrote in Psalm 8 of his experience as a shepherd and his relationship with the sheep. The sheep were fully dependent on him for their needs and wellbeing. At one point, he said in prayer, ‘Your rod and your staff, they comfort me’.  Comfort is that state of wellbeing when one is at peace with oneself.  There is a sense of security, a peaceful calm is in the air and one feels completely safe.  The Lord was protecting David as well.  David's sheep sense calm and security as well.  At some level they may have sensed that the shepherd held in his hand the instruments of their safety, the rod and the staff with which to strike the predator and retrieve them if they fell in harm’s way.  Since 'all of us like sheep have gone astray', we can feel protection beneath the cross of Christ:  one short instrument (the horizontal wood-piece, like the rod) and one long instrument (the vertical wood-piece, like the staff) by which Christ struck the predator of our souls, Sin.

 

Psalm 23: 4  "Thy rod and thy staff, they comfort me." 

The long staff - the short rod are instruments

of protection not of punishment.

Christ's birth, life, death and resurrection

bring us new life and bring a new

song to our hearts.

 

After 2000 years, the story of God's love holds strong:  it cannot be deleted.

It stands the test of time.   HE IS ALIVE...

 

THE CHRIST CHILD IS THE STORY OF GOD'S LOVE

FOR HUMANITY!

 

 

                                                                              A NEW DAY'S SONG

Psalm 104: 24

 

Photo by Carol Castagna   © 9/2007

 

 

   Why have so many people walked away from Him?

   By carol castagna © 11/2013

   NKJV Holy Bible