Another Celebration of Peace on earth

A lot of people have just celebrated a holiday that, for many anyway, led them to look at Jesus. Praise the Lord!

Today is another celebration that was originally instituted by God to give the human family another special time to look at Jesus - God. I also praise the Lord.

I was born into a Christian family for which I truly thank God. I would be surprised if I was not in church the first Sabbath after I came home from the hospital. There had been a lot of celebrating when I was born, for I just 'happened' to 'win' the baby derby put on by Starke county where my family lived - the first baby born in the hew year - as one way the local folks had chosen to celebrate 100 years as a county. But as exciting as my birth most likely was at that time, my folks considered praising God and thanking Him for another child an appropriate activity as well and I believe I went to church with them.

A lot of my early memories center around that old church building in Knox, Indiana. Not only was it where we went to church each Sabbath but my first two years of elementary school were spent in the basement of that building where the dedicated folks of that church provided christian teachers to lead their children to Christ as well as instruction in 'reading, writing and arithmetic'.

As years passed, though, I sadly began to imbibe in some very legalistic thought processes. Instead of perceiving the joy and tremendous blessing of experiencing how special time with God was and particularly during the holy Sabbath hours, I came to see the Sabbath more through 'do' this or 'don't do that' perception.

But it so happens that the same God who came to this world as a baby had already come to this world as its Creator. For six days God had exhibited to the whole universe answers to charges which had been leveled against Him by a former 'friend' who had turned to be His enemy. Each day of creation was not only 'creating' some elements essential to the well being and joy for the new part of God's family He was soon to create, but each activity of God was also being used by Him to refute some accusation against Him by his enemy, Satan.

As the sixth day of Creation drew to a close and God declared that He had completed what He had come to accomplish in not only creating all that was necessary to sustain life but also in creating a new 'order of beings' - the human family - the whole universe broke into a celebration like nothing we can even imagine. There was singing, shouting and far more - maybe the hallelujah chorus gives us a faint idea.

As that first Sabbath drew to a close the Bible tells us that God set the seventh day apart as special - a time every week when the whole human family could repeat the same celebration of joy, peace and love that was experienced that first Sabbath of this world.

This Sabbath is going to be special at our church so I need to go for now.

May the same God who created this world, and who again came as a Baby, come to you this wonderful Sabbath day in a special way and give you His Peace.

Bringer of Peace