We have successfully finished our simple Christmas decorations using lighting that we bought from our recent trip to Tagaytay. We compared the price of the Christmas lantern we got to those that are sold here in Manila of the same size and we got it about half the price or even less. We are now ready to experience the Christmas ambience at home.
Christmas is just around the corner and you will be attending a lot of Christmas parties and will be having exchange gifts, too. Here are some christmas present ideas for friends in case you need a reminder about the things usually given. SOme of the most common are picture frames, flash lights, calendar or planner for the coming year, mugs, toys, an MP3 player or even a new cellular phone. Keep in mind that the best way to choose a gift is to think of your friend’s interest.
“And it was so, when the days of their feasting were gone about, that Job sent and sanctified them, and rose up early in the morning, and offered burnt offerings according to the number of them all: for Job said, It may be that my sons have sinned, and cursed God in their hearts. Thus did Job continually.”
Job 1:5
What the patriarch did early in the morning, after the family festivities, it will be well for the believer to do for himself ere he rests tonight. Amid the cheerfulness of household gatherings it is easy to slide into sinful levities, and to forget our avowed character as Christians. It ought not to be so, but so it is, that our days of feasting are very seldom days of sanctified enjoyment, but too frequently degenerate into unhallowed mirth. There is a way of joy as pure and sanctifying as though one bathed in the rivers of Eden: holy gratitude should be quite as purifying an element as grief. Alas! for our poor hearts, that facts prove that the house of mourning is better than the house of feasting. Come, believer, in what have you sinned to-day? Have you been forgetful of your high calling? Have you been even as others in idle words and loose speeches? Then confess the sin, and fly to the sacrifice. The sacrifice sanctifies. The precious blood of the Lamb slain removes the guilt, and purges away the defilement of our sins of ignorance and carelessness. This is the best ending of a Christmas-day–to wash anew in the cleansing fountain. Believer, come to this sacrifice continually; if it be so good to-night, it is good every night. To live at the altar is the privilege of the royal priesthood; to them sin, great as it is, is nevertheless no cause for despair, since they draw near yet again to the sin-atoning victim, and their conscience is purged from dead works.
Gladly I close this festive day, Grasping the altar’s hallow’d horn; My slips and faults are washed away, The Lamb has all my trespass borne.
Light is a major theme in the Bible. When Jesus was born the angels made a dazzling lights display to announce the birth of the King. Wisemen from the east were guided by a bright light in the sky which led them to Jesus.
What are perfect gift suggestions for young people? Well, that would really depend on your budget. If you have lots of money to spare I’m sure young people would love gadgets and cellphones.
They would really be blown away by ipods, iPhones, Xbox, Wii and anything like that. But, in giving gifts, aside from the enjoyment the recipient will have, you should also consider the effects of it on a long term. You do not want to spoil that teen ager so much. These gifts would be perfect as big rewards for school accomplishments recognized this Christmas season.
Christmas is coming soon and malls all around are busy with preparations to lure customers to do their Christmas shopping in their establishments. Malls have set up Christmas lanterns, put up wreaths, trees and have taken out horse supplies, and set up their own version of the nativity scene.
But in the midst of all these preparations and excitement let us never lose focus of the one reason why Jesus was born in to this world – to live a perfect live and become the only acceptable sacrifice for all our sins. The God-man has come, Emmanuel.
