PUT HIM ON

"I think that the good and the great are only separated by the willingness to sacrifice." - Anonymous

Augustine narrating an experience says, "I was weeping in the most bitter contrition of my heart, when I heard the voice of children from a neighboring house chanting, "take up and read; take up and read." I could not remember ever having heard the like, so checking the torrent of my tears, I arose, interpreting it to be no other than a command from God to open the book and read the first chapter I should find. Eagerly then I returned to the place where I had laid the volume of the apostle. I seized, opened, and in silence read that section on which my eyes first fell: "Not in revelry and drunkenness, not in licentiousness and lewdness, not is strife and envy; but put on the Lord Jesus Christ, and make no provision for the flesh, to fulfill its lusts."

UNTO US A CHILD IS BORN

"He was created of a mother whom He created. He was carried by hands that He formed. He cried in the manger in wordless infancy. He, the Word, without whom all human eloquence is mute.” - Augustine

It's another December, twenty fifth. Another Christmas day. But like Benjamin Franklin said, “How many observe Christ’s birthday! How few, His precepts!” It's true that millions around the world celebrate today, many for the wrong reasons. How many really know and acknowledge the fact that He came to a world filled with pain, with a permanent cure. Or that He came to a world dark from the bondage of sin with His indescribable light to dispel forever the powers of darkness. He came to a world, and a people he made with a message of liberation.