December 2023 Revealing Light Newsletter

What is hope?

• Is it hoping in the uncertainty that things will be better?

What is peace?

• Is it the choice to never confront the conflict that is hurting a relationship?

What is joy?

• Is it only in a situation when there's happiness?

And what is love?

• Is love just a feeling between people you like against those you don't like?

Sometimes we just have a general abstract idea of something until we flesh it out, put a little meat on it’s bones. We witness God flesh these concepts out by giving meat to the bones of our ideas of hope, peace, joy and love when He came in the flesh as Jesus Christ. Jesus is the full essence of hope, peace, joy, and love, revealed in the flesh. So yes, Jesus fleshed out the ideas of what true hope, peace, joy, and love is. It’s tangible, it's no longer just an abstract concept and idea.

During the advent season, we join in the anticipation and celebration of Jesus’ arrival -- the full essence of God revealed in the flesh as our Savior, hope, peace, joy, and love.

- Daryl Struemph

I hope as I write this message that it doesn’t cause your brain to work overtime. I believe the Bible stays relevant because it answers questions we may have as our circumstances change.

I’d be lying if I said I was looking forward to this Christmas as much as I have in past years. This Christmas will be the first one without my son present. I already miss him and it’s not even Christmas yet. So here is the question that I never thought of before now, because of the absence of my son. When Jesus came to earth, born of a virgin (Luke 1:27), did Heaven miss His presence? Here is what we know. God the father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit make up the trinity. The father is God (John 6:27), Jesus Christ is God (Heb. 1:8), The Spirit is God (Acts 5:3-4). And God has characteristics of “Omnipresence” meaning God is everywhere (Psalms 139:7-12), “Omniscience” meaning God knows all actual and possible things (Matthew 11:21), “Omnipotence” meaning All power is His (Revelation 11:17.) So during those 33 years that Christ lived on the earth was He still present in Heaven?

Philippians 2:5-11 “Have this attitude in yourselves, which was also in Christ Jesus, who although He existed in the form of God, did not regard equality with God as a thing to be grasped, but emptied Himself, taking the form of a bondservant, and being made in the likeness of men. Being found in appearance as a man, He humbled Himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross. For this reason also God highly exalted Him, and bestowed on Him the name which is above every name, so that at the name of Jesus EVERY KNEE WILL BOW, of those who are in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and that every tongue will confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.”

So Jesus was deity in the flesh even if He chose not to use some of His divine powers while on the earth.


So why have all this discussion anyway, because it leads us to the real reason for Christmas. God created us so He could love us, communicate with us share His world with us. Just as much as I miss Andy, God misses us when we choose not to commune with Him, to share our lives (successes and failures) with Him. Jesus’ redemptive work on the cross makes it possible for us to look forward to that day when we can be forever together with Him. But He doesn’t want us to wait until then to start that relationship. So this Christmas as you adore that baby in the manger, don’t forget, He is God and He loves You.

- Alan McNeely