The Real Christmas People - A Word with You - Feb. 3, 2012

 

The Real Christmas People

Luke 2:1-4

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Over the years, our family has had the chance to see Christmas from many different perspectives: Christmas in Manhattan, in Chicago's Loop, a mountain Christmas, a colonial Christmas, a white Christmas, a warm Christmas, and a one horse open sleigh Christmas.

But it's a man named Nate Saint who, better than anyone else I know, may have captured Christmas from heaven's perspective. He was one of five American missionaries, called by God to the jungles of Ecuador to introduce the Gospel to one of the "lostest" people on earth, the primitive Auca (Waorani) Indians.

Once they found the Aucas in the dense jungles, it was Nate who, as a seasoned pilot, managed to land them on a narrow beach by the Curaray River. Now, I've stood on that beach where Nate Saint, Jim Elliott, and the others died at the hands of the people they were trying to reach. But years later the men who murdered them had become the leaders of the Auca Church, and many, including me, were inspired by their example to give our lives to serve the Lord Jesus. On the eve of his last Christmas on earth, weeks before his death, Nate Saint wrote his perspective on Christmas, and I cannot get it out of my mind. I hope you won't either.

see what you see when you look at them. Help me feel some of your heart to rescue them from an unspeakable eternity." And pledge to Him to do all you can to help people you know be in heaven with you.

Maybe even in these countdown days to Christmas, you can pray for God to open up some amazing opportunities to tell someone about Him. About why He came, why He died, and what He does when we open our life to Him.

Because Christmas is all about a rescue mission; to intervene for someone who is, in Nate Saint's words, hurtling "headlong into a Christ-less night without ever having a chance." You know, you can be that chance.

© (c) Ronald P. Hutchcraft
Distributed by Ron Hutchcraft Ministries, Inc.

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Christianity / Devotionals / Today's Devotionals / The Real Christmas People - A Word with You - Feb. 3, 2012