Let your heart be revived at Christmastime.
It is hard to have a great revival in your church at Christmas, because people are thinking about something else. But it is not hard to have revival in your heart.
I was a boy about 15 [1910]. Christmastime came in the ranch country in West Texas. All the rest of the family went to Decatur, Texas, to Grandpa Bella's (my stepmother's father). I was left alone. Someone had to feed the horses, milk the cows and take care of the little stock farm and the ranch while the others were gone. So I was left alone for a whole week. I got to reading the Bible. I found out what is true in Jeremiah 15:16, "Thy words were found, and I did eat them; and thy word was unto me the joy and rejoicing of mine heart." Oh, I learned to enjoy the Bible. How sweet and good it was!
At Christmastime, why don't you have a little time of spiritual revival, a little extra time to pray, a little extra time to sing the choruses and happy anthems of Christmastime-"Joy to the World," etc.? You can have a wonderful time of blessing at Christmas. Have a revival in your heart. - John R. Rice {Christmas and Jesus, pg. 8]
We have eternal salvation. You remember that "God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life." Oh, you didn't get life for a day, or for a week. You didn't get salvation until you do wrong, or if you hold out. You got everlasting life when you got Jesus. - John R. Rice [Christmas Now and All the Year, pg. 21]
You got everlasting life when you got Jesus.
You mean the next day a fellow is just as much saved? Yes, sir. Whether he works like he ought to? Well, you don't have to put a "whether" about that, for every person who hears me today is falling short of the perfect will of God. You needn't tell me you are sinless and blameless. You needn't tell me you are as good as Jesus Christ. You needn't tell me that you never omitted one single thing you ought to do nor ever crossed over the line in the thing you ought not to say or didn't say. I am just saying that everybody who hears me has failed, and if God doesn't have salvation for sinners that keeps them, we would sure be a ruined bunch, all going to Hell. But it is everlasting life that God gives freely. Everlasting life. - John R. Rice [Christmas Now and All the Year, pg. 21]
In I Corinthians 6:19, 20 we read, "What? know ye not that your body is the temple of the Holy Ghost which is in you, which ye have of God, and ye are not your own? For ye are bought with a price: therefore glorify God in your body, and in your spirit, which are God's." My body is a temple of God, not because I am worthy; not because I hold out faithful; I didn't start faithful. There has never been anything good about me that could earn salvation nor pay back God for the awful cost of the death of His Son on the cross. No, I got salvation free because Jesus loved me and died for me and offered it free, and I accepted it. - John R. Rice [Christmas Now and All the Year, pg. 21-22]
Thank God for everlasting life! So I can say like Paul said in II Timothy 1:12, "For the which cause I also suffer these things: nevertheless I am not ashamed: for I know whom I have believed, and am persuaded that he is able to keep that which I have committed unto him against that day."
If I had a lot of money (I don't have) and if I had a lock box at a bank (I don't have), and I would go and deposit $50,000 in bonds in that locked box, they would keep it safe for me. But I have a locked box in Heaven and the Lord Jesus Christ has my eternal welfare in His hands, my High Priest, and He can be perfectly trusted "to keep that which I have committed unto him against that day," the Scripture said.
He didn't say, "I AM committing." He said, I HAVE committed." Paul didn't say, "I WILL BE believing." He said, "I have believed." And so have I, and I have salvation. - John R. Rice [Christmas Now and All the Year, pg. 22]
I read again this morning where the Scripture said, ". . .we have now received the atonement." I have already received it. My sins are already paid for.
Somebody says, "You might sin again." Yes, not only might, I have. I am so sorry. But then, do you think the Lord Jesus is going to come back and die again to pay for my sins? No, He did it all by one offering forever. No, thank God. I have eternal salvation and "am persuaded, that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor powers, nor things present, nor things to come, Nor height, nor depth, nor any other creature, shall be able to separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord." I have everlasting life. That would be just as much Christmas in the middle of the year as December 25. - John R. Rice [Christmas Now and All the Year, pg. 22]
I have not only eternal salvation, but I have peace with God. "Oh, the peace the Saviour gives! Peace I never knew before." You can trust Jesus. He said, "My peace I give unto you: not as the world giveth, give I unto you. Let not your heart be troubled, neither let it be afraid." Jesus said in John 14:2, "In my Father's house are many mansions: if it were not so, I would have told you. I go to prepare a place for you." He said, "Let not your heart be troubled, neither let it be afraid." I have peace with God. - John R. Rice [Christmas Now and All the Year, pg. 22]
Christian, why don't you make this a year of going to God and getting what you need and being happy? I would put Him first in the giving business. Remember in Matthew 6:33 He has just said not to worry about your food. He said, '. . .take no thought for tomorrow, what you shall wear.' He said, 'The birds of the air are cared for. Your Heavenly Father feeds them.' He said, 'Solomon in all his glory wasn't dressed up like a wild flower that God gas cared for. And aren't you worth more than flowers and worth more than birds?'
So He said in Matthew 6:33, "But seek ye first the kingdom of God, and his righteousness; and all these things shall be added unto you."
Why don't you this year put Jesus first? Can you say, "I am going to put Him first so I won't be covetous. What money I have belongs to Him. What I possess, God possesses or any talent or gift or friend or loved one--whatever. I am going to let Jesus be in charge"? - John R. Rice [Christmas Now and All the Year, pg. 23]
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