Monday, December 23, 2013

Once in a lifetime



Many years ago, there was a baby doll on the market at Christmastime, dressed in pajamas and a nightcap. When you soaked its diaper in water, a birth certificate appeared and would announce the sex, name, weight, etc. of the baby. And for one out of every 200,000, the birth announcement would announce TWINS and the company would send you another doll exactly like the first for free. Well, at the time, I had a foster daughter who wanted the twins. Uh…. Yeah. So I bought the one doll and just planned on dealing with the disappointment when the time came.

On Christmas morning, she opened the package and we immediately went to the bathroom sink to soak the diaper. She opened the birth certificate and it indeed said TWINS! I was screaming with excitement! Yes! Holy cow! Woo Hoo! Unbelievable!! Aren’t you excited? Her response – “Yeah, it’s what I wanted.” – like I didn’t understand. She was pleased but clearly not amazed at the improbability and the odds.

I share this because I sometimes wonder if we sometimes wake up to Christmas morning this same way. We are celebrating the day of Christ’s birth, the One (and only One) Who came to save us when there was no other way. Do we respond like this daughter, with a “Yeah…?” Or do we realize the magnitude of odds against us? And do our hearts swell with such amazing gratitude with a fist pumping Yes! Woo hoo! Hallelujah!

With all that’s going on in the days ahead to celebrate this Christmas, let us humbly bow with an overwhelming thanks to this King… for we were once lost (you remember that low, lost, give-your-life-to-Jesus moment?), and now you are found and saved for eternity. Yes, indeed. Hallelujah! Praise the Lord!

Hebrews 9:26 Otherwise Christ would have had to suffer many times since the creation of the world. But he has appeared once for all at the culmination of the ages to do away with sin by the sacrifice of himself.

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