Have A Confident Faith

Hello Church,

What tests your faith?  Is it Christmas?

The baby being born gives me confidence.  It's God speaking to me in a direct way.  God says to Joe, 'I love you.  Here is my gift to you'.  While this gift is to the whole world, in one perspective I see it as a gift to me specifically.  It is the ultimate proof that God loves me unconditionally.  Do you believe this?  Yes?

So why are you worried about whether or not you are loved?

Maybe you are not.  However, maybe you are one that spends your days showing other people why you should be loved.  You do nice things and help people.  You participate in charity and volunteer your time to work at church and send Christmas cards and buy gifts.  And if you can succeed and get one person to love you, then you feel good.  If you fail, you feel bad, maybe mad, certainly sad.

And then the next day you try again... and then again... and then again.  And you find your life filled with earning the love from others.  And your days become an emotional roller coaster as some weeks you are surrounded by the love of others and other weeks, no matter how hard you try, some just refuse to like you.

If this is you, here is my question:  Do you really believe in Christmas?

A confident Faith is rooted in love.  I am not confident in a lot of things.  I am not confident in my sports teams; my eating habits; my car; my fashion sense; my artistic ability; etc.  But I have learned that I am loved no matter what.  Not because I succeed in earning it, but because God reminds me from time to time (Christmas and Easter being 2 biggies), that He gives it freely. 

So I can go about day with a terrible amount of freedom.  I can do nice things and help people.  I can participate in charity and volunteer my time and send Christmas cards and buy gifts, unattached to any sort of success or failure.  The roller coaster still exists, but it isn't based on whether or not I am loved because I know I am loved by the most important person of my life.... my Creator.

I hope this Christmas boosts your confidence and you can be free.  May 2020 be a year of a confident Faith.

Happy Advent and Merry Christmas,

God is Good,

Pastor Joe