Let’s Keep Christmas
Nelson Price
Romans 15:12–14
12/26/82
Charles Dickens said, "I will honor Christmas in my heart and try to keep it all year." God is the source of all hope; He generates it, and He is also the object of it. Experience might well drive us to despair. The circumstances of life might lead to depressions. Many have become fatalistic, nihilistic and pessimistic. It would be easy to drift into a hopeless acceptance of defeat. There are no hopeless situations; there are only people who have become hopeless about them. There is something in Christian hope that nothing can kill. There is no shadow that can shatter hope.
Romans 15:4, "Whatsoever things," says the Apostle, "were written aforetime, were written for our learning, that we through patience and consolation of the scriptures might have hope." For the Scripture to work in us and inspire hope, it must be known. Even sorrow, when afforded the encouragement of the Scripture and responded to by brave perseverance, brings us to the manger of hope. The Scripture inspires confident anticipation of the future and progressive good in Jesus Christ.
There is a difference between pleasure and joy. Ancient cynical philosophers noted this. They said, "pleasure is only the pause between two pains." You desire something and that is pain. You get it and enjoy it for a short while, and this is pleasure. The moment of pleasure passes and the pain returns. Christian joy is not dependent upon things. Jesus Christ is the so ...
Nelson Price
Romans 15:12–14
12/26/82
Charles Dickens said, "I will honor Christmas in my heart and try to keep it all year." God is the source of all hope; He generates it, and He is also the object of it. Experience might well drive us to despair. The circumstances of life might lead to depressions. Many have become fatalistic, nihilistic and pessimistic. It would be easy to drift into a hopeless acceptance of defeat. There are no hopeless situations; there are only people who have become hopeless about them. There is something in Christian hope that nothing can kill. There is no shadow that can shatter hope.
Romans 15:4, "Whatsoever things," says the Apostle, "were written aforetime, were written for our learning, that we through patience and consolation of the scriptures might have hope." For the Scripture to work in us and inspire hope, it must be known. Even sorrow, when afforded the encouragement of the Scripture and responded to by brave perseverance, brings us to the manger of hope. The Scripture inspires confident anticipation of the future and progressive good in Jesus Christ.
There is a difference between pleasure and joy. Ancient cynical philosophers noted this. They said, "pleasure is only the pause between two pains." You desire something and that is pain. You get it and enjoy it for a short while, and this is pleasure. The moment of pleasure passes and the pain returns. Christian joy is not dependent upon things. Jesus Christ is the so ...
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