And Forever

 Jesus Christ is the same yesterday and today and forever.  Hebrews 13:8

I believe I've written before of my first Christmas Eve while I attended Bible College in Colorado. My roommates had both left to be with family or friends. All of mine were too far away to get to, so I was alone in our apartment. Yet I wasn't. We'd gotten a small tree and I'd bought some ornaments and lights to go on it. I attended a Christmas Eve service at our church, and then went home to that apartment, that decorated tree,     and to Him.

I'll never forget that night. I experienced Him in a way I never had before in my short time walking with Him. I played some albums from Jesus Music people like the 2nd Chapter of Acts and Keith Green. As I listened to the lyrics, so filled with His presence, and gazed upon that tree and its sparkling lights, I experienced Him in a way I still can't really describe. It's among my most cherished memories. Last night, Christmas Eve, it was 45 years to the day since it happened. 

I had received a gracious and warm invitation for Christmas Eve this year, and I intended to take part. As the time came to leave, I just had a sense that I needed to remain in my home....with Him. To have fellowship with Him just as I had 45 years ago. I yielded to that. In my tree lit room, I played music from the very same albums from that night all those years ago. I once again listened to those powerful lyrics. I gazed upon those lights, and once again, I had a deep, rich fellowship with Him. He ministered to me. Like, yet unlike how He had that night in Colorado. He was the same, yet He was somehow different. I experienced Him far more deeply. You see, He is unchanging, yet if we will really walk with Him, He will take us to depths in Himself that we never knew were there. He is unchanging, but I was not the same man I was in Colorado. He is unchanging, but He is forever changing us. As He does, we discover riches in Him we never knew were there. This Christmas Eve was not the same as that one more than 4 1/2 decades ago, but He was still beautiful, still mighty and majestic, and still more real than anything else in this world. I was 30 years old that first Eve. Now I'm 75. His mercies continue to be "new every morning," and every moment of every day as well. 

I'm sure I missed some great fellowship at that gathering, but I don't regret it because I didn't miss Him. He revealed to me once more, new wonders of Himself. And I learned once more that He will do this with me, with us who believe.....forever.

Blessings,
Pastor O