To many today, Christmas is just a holiday – a stressful one at that. 

It’s a time for buying gifts that didn’t need to be bought out of a budget that couldn’t afford them. 

It’s a time for squeezing parties and extra events into a schedule that was already too full. 

It’s a time in which many feel rushed and over committed when what they really need is to slow down and enjoy the season.

Christmas should be a time of peace, not of fear and unrest.  We fear we may overlook someone on our gift list, or maybe they won’t like what we bought them, or perhaps they will think our gift too cheap. For some, Christmas brings the added tension of bringing together fractured families.  Instead of peace, they dread the inevitable conflicts.  Yet, Christmas should be a time of peace.

Christmas should be a time of hope.  Think about this, Christmas is poised at the end of one year and the beginning of the next – at the crossroads of the past and the future.  A previous year, with its blessings and its trials, is gone.  A new year looms ahead, full of uncertainty.  Yet, here is Christmas – the celebration of a birth that took place over 2000 years ago – a perennial bright spot on our calendars – because God has give us hope. Christmas should be a time of hope.

Christmas should be a time of love centered around the greatest love story ever told – the story of God who so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son.  Christmas is the story of God’s greatest gift given to meet our greatest need – because God is Love.  Christmas should be a time of love.

The Christmas story – a tale retold year after year, yet it never loses its majesty; it never ceases to fill our hearts with wonder.  I want you to see three facts – three certainties – that if you will let them find room in your heart today, they will fill this Christmas with peace, hope, and love.

Your Christmas will be forever changed when you realize these three simple truths:

1. God is in control

Our lives offer no surprises, doubts, uncertainties, or fears to God.  He is in control.  Just as He knew what was happening in Nazareth, he knows what is happening in your home.  And He knows just what to say to bring peace into your house this Christmas.

2. God Can

The Christmas story is a story of how God fulfilled His promise to bring hope to a hurting world.  It reminds us that God can meet our needs, heal our hurts, and solve our problems.  God can fill your Christmas with hope.

3. God Cares

The Christmas story is about how God saw us in our sins  – the guilt, the bondage, the corruption, the addictions – all the ways we fall short of God’s standard of perfection, and sent His son anyway.

Instead of despising us, God loved us.  Although our sins condemned us, God chose to save us. It was God’s love that compelled Him to send His Son to be born – and, eventually, to die for our sins.

It is our hope that you will remember these thoughts and have a Christmas that is filled with peace, hope and love.