In Dicken’s book A Christmas Carol, Scrooge is visited by three ghosts one of them being the Ghost of Christmas Past. What would I be shown if such a thing happened to me? Christmas has a wide variety of memories for me both good and bad.
As I think through Christmas Past, the first one that comes to mind for me is one of my favorite Christmas holidays in my life. It was Christmas 2005 when I spent my Christmas in Constanta Romania.
My home church partnered with a church in Constanta for many years and in 2005 their Romanian pastor was in South Africa studying at a seminary, so my church sent me to Constanta to fill in for their pastor during Christmas.
At a Christmas party for the college group of the church, I received a plate with 1 Corinthinans 13 in Romanian on it.
It was a blessing to be able to share the message for Christmas Eve and Christmas Day worship services. I loved joining a joint Christmas celebration for university students from Baptist, Evangelical, Catholic and Orthodox churches. Home visits to spend time with members of the church were especially meaningful.
Christmas normally evokes memories of time with family, gift giving, and special meals. The reason my trip to Romania is one of my favorite Christmas memories is because I was spending my Christmas on a ministry trip in another country sharing the love of Jesus with Romanian and Turkish people in Constanta.
We don’t have to go to another country to make Christmas about sharing the love and message of Jesus with others. We can do it in our hometowns. Sharing Christ’s love is the reason we have Christmas. 1 John 4:9 says:
“We love because he first loved us”
It is because of God’s love for us that we have Christmas. John 3:16:
“For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life.”
How will you spend your Christmas this year?
Thank you for reading. God Bless.
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