(C) Cheryl Howard 2009

I cannot live without YOU, not even for a day

I stagger lost without YOU, YOU are The Only Way

Without YOUR light I’m blind, groping in the dark

I see a future empty, devoid of life and stark

Without YOU I am shrivelled, a shadow without form

If it wasn’t for YOUR Cross LORD, I’d still be dead, unborn

YOU are my breath of life, YOUR heart it beats in mine

Forever am I grateful that YOU stepped down into time

YOU took my sins upon YOU, YOU covered me with grace

YOU are unchanging Truth, in YOUR Atonement rests my faith

And what unsearchable riches, my LORD are found in YOU

YOUR Blood upon The Cross LORD, did for me what I can’t do

It is YOUR heart that is my treasure, YOUR Face that I seek

YOU Alone delight my soul, I yearn each day to hear YOU speak

For YOU are Life Eternal, Merciful, Righteous, Pure

The more O LORD I know YOU, I long to know YOU more, and more!

thought for the journey ….  

The miracle of CHRISTmas, the yearly celebration, exists because of ALMIGHTY GOD’s great heart of love towards HIS lost, fallen and rebellious creation. If GOD had not incarnated HIMSELF in Baby JESUS 2000 odd years ago, the world would indeed be a grim and ‘hope’less place. But we have JESUS - IMMANUEL, GOD with us; The Hope of the world ….. what a reason to celebrate, what joy, what wonder, what undeserved grace - what hope!

The miracle is that a Holy, Righteous, Just and Perfect GOD loves flawed, selfish, sin stained, self obsessed, failure ridden humanity - and not because we are so ‘lovable’ but because HE has imbued us with great worth and HE IS LOVE!

When we see our own ‘ugliness’ and unrighteousness, we are right - for all our ‘righteousness’ is as filthy rags (Isaiah 64:6) - and we must run to our SAVIOR Who fills us with HIS imputed righteousness. We have nothing to redeem ourselves, nothing to commend ourselves - yet HE chose us, loves us, and HE will fill us with HIS love and goodness, for HIS manifest glory - if we yield to HIM, trusting in the work of HIS Cross, the Power of HIS Blood, and receive!

Hold our own lives lightly, secure in the knowledge that YHWH holds them priceless! Oh how imperative it is that we know ‘who we are in CHRIST’ - not that we know “who we are”, but that we know who we are “in CHRIST”

The miracle is that not only does our Holy CREATOR love us, but HE yearns for us to be reconciled to HIMSELF - and an even greater miracle is that HE took upon HIMSELF the cost, the task and burden of reconciling us, of washing us clean from the filth of our sin, of redeeming us - of rescuing us through JESUS The CHRIST, SAVIOR of all who would hear HIS voice and heed HIS command to “Repent for the Kingdom of heaven is at hand” (Matthew 4:17) 

“All we like sheep have gone astray; we have turned, every one, to his own way; and The LORD has laid on HIM the iniquity of us all.” Isaiah 53:6

This is the true message of CHRISTmas - the Gospel of the Grace of GOD!