ponderings

some thoughts that have been challenging my heart even as i seek to make myself "poor" on behalf of my little ones.

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.
2Corinthians 8:9

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; finally, a death that involved such agony--spiritual, even more than physical---that his mind nearly broke under the prospect of it. It meant love to the uttermost for unlovely men, who "through his poverty, might become rich." This Christmas message is that there is hope for a ruined humanity---hope of pardon, hope of peace with God, hope of glory---because at the Father's will Jesus Christ became poor and was born in a stable so that thirty years later he might hang on a cross. It is the most wonderful message that the world has ever heard, or will hear... we talk glibly of the "Christmas spirit"...the phrase should in fact carry a tremendous weight of meaning. It ought to mean the reproducing in human lives of the temper of him who for our sakes became poor at the first Christmas. And the Christmas spirit itself ought to be the mark of every Christian all year round...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. J.I. Packer

come to earth to taste our sadness, he whose glories knew no end; by his life he brings us gladness, our Redeemer, Shepherd, Friend. Leaving riches without number, born within a cattle stall; this the everlasting wonder, Christ was born the Lord of all. charles wesley

when you consider the joy of the Father and the Son in their sacrifice, there is nothing to which he calls you that can be considered a real sacrifice. It is just a grateful response to his grace.(paraphrased as i was trying to write it down so fast) george robertson