a time for love, liberation and living for others

here is a christmas dedication from martin jalleh to me and a few other of his friends.

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In this is love, not that we loved God but that he loved us and sent his Son to be the expiation for our sins. (1 John 4:10)
May this Christmas remain a reminder of the greatest “presentâ€? we can ever receive from God – Jesus. It is by this Love that we live, move and have our being. It is this Love that frees us of our preoccuption with our personal salvation — motivates us to go beyond our very selves and our racial, religious, cultural confines — and empowers us to risk ourselves for others — that justice and peace may be for all men and women of goodwill.

He was in the world, and the world was made through him, yet the world knew him not. (John 1:10)
May we recognize Jesus who comes not only to liberate us from sin but from our prejudices and pride. They did not recognize him on that first Christmas. He chose — the least important town (Bethlehem); the most insignificant place (a stable); to appear before a group often ignored (shepherds). He continues to be “bornâ€? amongst the down-trodden, the dispossessed, the discriminated, the dysfunctional….

there was no place for them in the inn? (Luke 2:7)
May we have place for God in our lives this Christmas. So often we are so full of ourselves, so preoccupied. Our lives crowded, our hearts cluttered, our souls cramped within the narrow walls of comfortable Christianity, and the certainties of a “God� which we have created in our own image and likeness. So sure of ourselves, we refuse to let God be God.

May Christ be born again in our hearts this Christmas and may each day be Christmas.

In His love and prayers,
Martin