A little "Christmas spirit" from J.I. Packer

We talk glibly of the "Christmas spirit," rarely meaning more by this than sentimental jollity on a family basis. But what we have said makes it clear that the phrase should in fact carry a tremendous weight of meaning. It ought to mean the reproducing in human lives of the temper of him who for our sakes became poor at the first Christmas. And the Christmas spirit itself ought to be the mark of every Christian all the year round.

It is our shame and disgrace today that so many Christians - I will be more specific: so many of the soundest and most orthodox Christians - go through this world in the spirit of the priest and the Levite in our Lord's parable, seeing human needs all around them, but (after a pious wish, and perhaps a prayer, that the Lord might meet those needs) averting their eyes and passing by on the other side. That is not the Christmas spirit. Nor is it the spirit of those Christians - alas, they are many - whose ambition in life seems limited to building a nice middle-class Christian home, and making nice middle-class Christian friends, and bringing up their children in nice-middle class Christian ways, and who leave the submiddle-class sections of the community, Christian and non-Christian, to get on by themselves.

The Christmas spirit does not shine out in the Christian snob. For the Christian spirit is the spirit of those who, like their Master, live their whole lives on the principle of making themselves poor - spending and being spent - to enrich their fellow humans, giving time, trouble, care and concern, to do good to others - and not just their own friends - in whatever way there seems need.
-- J.I. Packer, Knowing God, pp. 63-64

2 Cor 8:9 - For you know the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, that though he was rich, yet for your sakes he became poor, so that you through his poverty might become rich.

Phillipians 2:5 - Your attitude should be the same as that of Christ Jesus

Sawdust?

OK, I'm reading through the Bible this year and I must admit that reading large portions of the Levitical law is like eating sawdust. Yes, I know this sounds so immature to say, but I'm being honest. I intersperse my reading of the law with the NT.
However, on this day reading Deut. 28 brought tears to my eyes as I read the curses God had for his chosen people. Here's a few examples:

• Your carcasses will be food for all the birds of the air and the beasts of the earth, and there will be no one to frighten them away.
• [You will be afflicted] with the boils of Egypt and with tumors, festering sores and the itch, from which you cannot be cured...with madness, blindness and confusion of mind. At midday you will grope about like a blind man in the dark.
• You will be unsuccessful in everything you do; day after day you will be oppressed and robbed, with no one to rescue you.
• You will be pledged to be married to a woman, but another will take her and ravish her.
• You will build a house, but you will not live in it.
• You will plant a vineyard, but you will not even begin to enjoy its fruit.
• Your ox will be slaughtered before your eyes, but you will eat none of it.
• Your donkey will be forcibly taken from you and will not be returned.
• Your sheep will be given to your enemies, and no one will rescue them.
• Your sons and daughters will be given to another nation, and you will wear out your eyes watching for them day after day, powerless to lift a hand.
• You will have nothing but cruel oppression all your days. The sights you see will drive you mad. [You will] will be afflict[ed] ... with painful boils that cannot be cured, spreading from the soles of your feet to the top of your head.

Now I doubt you'd read that whole list, but as I did (and it goes on for much, much longer) I thought, "I doubt that anyone ever received all of those curses." Then God brought Gal. 3:13 to my mind, "Christ redeemed us from the curse of the law by becoming a curse for us."

Those curses were only partially fulfilled toward the nation of Israel, and they displayed God's utter abhorence for sin. And this abhorence was poured out in full on Christ. So as I continued reading through these curses,

• the LORD will send fearful plagues on you and your descendants, harsh and prolonged disasters, and severe and lingering illnesses.
• He will bring upon you all the diseases of Egypt that you dreaded, and they will cling to you.
• The LORD will also bring on you every kind of sickness and disaster not recorded in this Book of the Law, until you are destroyed.
• You who were as numerous as the stars in the sky will be left but few in number, because you did not obey the LORD your God.
• Just as it pleased the LORD to make you prosper and increase in number, so it will please him to ruin and destroy you.
• You will be uprooted from the land you are entering to possess.

How can you not celebrate the thought of God cursing man, but in reality cursing His Son for our sake?

Guilty, vile, and helpless we;

Spotless Lamb of God was He;

“Full atonement!” can it be?

Hallelujah! What a Savior!