I am currently reading through the book, Come, Thou Long Expected Jesus by Nancy Guthrie. It is a compilation of many great writers including Charles Spurgeon, George Whitefield and John Piper. Each short chapter is a summary of a sermon or book previously recorded on the topic of Christmas. They are intended to be read as an advent book. I have been so encouraged by these chapters to ponder what is most valuable during this season of busyness and worldly distractions. One of the most impactful readings thus far was written by J.I. Packer entitled, "For Your Sakes He Became Poor". Instead of trying to bring my own disjointed thoughts to the table, I will let the Scripture passage and Packer's meditations speak for themselves here:
For you know the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, that though He was rich, yet for your sake He became poor, so that you by His poverty might become rich (2 Corinthians 8:9).
"The New Testament does not encourage us to puzzle our heads over the physical and psychological problems that it raises, but to worship God for the love that was shown in it. For it was a great act of condescension and self-humbling. 'He, Who had always been God by nature,' writes Paul, 'did not cling to His prerogatives as God's equal, but stripped Himself of all privilege by consenting to be a slave by nature and being born as mortal man. And, having become man, He humbled Himself by living a life of utter obedience, even to the extent of dying, and the death He died was the death of a common criminal' (Phil. 2:6, Phillips translation). And all this was for our salvation.
For the Son of God to empty Himself and become poor meant a laying aside of glory; a voluntary restraint of power; an acceptance of hardship, isolation, ill-treatment, malice, and misunderstanding...It meant love to the uttermost for unlovely men, who 'through His poverty, might become rich'.
It is to our shame and disgrace today that so many Christians - I will be more specific: so many of the soundest and most orthodox Christians - go through this world in the spirit of the priest and the Levite in our Lord's parable, seeing human needs all around them, but (after a pious wish, and perhaps a prayer, that God might meet them) averting their eyes, and passing by on the other side. That is not the Christmas spirit. Nor is it the spirit of those Christians - alas, there are many - whose ambition in life seems limited to building a nice middle-class Christian home, and making nice middle-class Christian friends, and bringing up their children in nice middle-class Christian ways, and who leave the sub-middle-class sections of the community, Christian and non-Christian, to get on by themselves. The Christmas spirit does not shine out in the Christian snob. For the Christmas spirit is the spirit of those who, like their Master, live their whole lives on the principle of making themselves poor - spending and being spent - to enrich their fellow men, giving time, trouble, care, and concern, to do good to others - and not just their own friends - in whatever way there seems need. There are not as many who show this spirit as there should be. If God in mercy revives us, one of the things He will do will be to work more of this spirit in our hearts and lives. If we desire spiritual quickening for ourselves individually, one step we should take is to seek to cultivate this spirit. 'Let this mind be in you, which was also in Christ Jesus'."
I run in the path of your commands, for you have set my heart free! Psalm 119:32
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