{"id":1496,"date":"2013-12-02T15:50:22","date_gmt":"2013-12-02T21:50:22","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/calebripple.com\/blog\/?p=1496"},"modified":"2013-12-18T15:55:36","modified_gmt":"2013-12-18T21:55:36","slug":"be-merry","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/calebripple.com\/blog\/be-merry\/","title":{"rendered":"Be Merry"},"content":{"rendered":"

Merry Christmas. So much more than a greeting or a salutation. Merry Christmas is code for \u201cThe Child has been born, the Savior King is alive. He is reigning and His Kingdom is increasing. And nothing and no one can stop it or slow it. He is coming again and I want you to know it.\u201d Merry Christmas is declaration and exhortation. This is why it is good to say \u201cMerry Christmas\u201d often, because very often our own souls need to hear it. Our own hearts and minds need to be reminded often.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Christ the reason for the season? The season? One season? No. Merry Christmas contradicts that myth. Merry Christmas, by very definition, implies all the time, every season. Every day we are to be<\/i> merry christmases.<\/p>\n

The whole Bible is about Jesus, and this means the whole Bible is about Christmas and gifts. It is about the incarnation\u2014The Son of God come in the flesh, leading the way. Our Father and our big Brother going behind our backs and conspiring to give us the most amazing Christmas gift we could never have imagined. Never to be outdone in all eternity. It worked. We had no idea. Oh and by the way, what did we give them? Nothing. We didn\u2019t have anything to <\/i>give. We weren\u2019t even speaking to one another, but we are now. Now we overflow with thanks and joy and enthusiasm and cheer and how could we not be, look at our gift!<\/p>\n

It is the aim of this series of messages to raise our view; to exhort us here at Christ Fellowship in particular to lift our eyes and by God\u2019s grace see with fresh vision, the incarnation in greater depth and clarity than we have yet to see it. It is our prayer that such a revelation would enable us to be<\/i> merry not just say<\/i> merry. To be little reflections\u2014little incarnations of The<\/i> Incarnate One<\/i>. To be Christmas lights that stay on, bright all year long, every day, in every season.<\/p>\n

Merry Christmas. Be Merry.
\n<\/em><\/p>\n

\"IMG_3072\"<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Merry Christmas. So much more than a greeting or a salutation. Merry Christmas is code for \u201cThe Child has been born, the Savior King is alive. He is reigning and His Kingdom is increasing. And nothing and no one can stop it or slow it. He is coming again and I want you to know […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[3,5,126],"tags":[127],"class_list":["post-1496","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-christianity","category-culture","category-exhortation","tag-christmas"],"aioseo_notices":[],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p5C2eY-o8","amp_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/calebripple.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1496","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/calebripple.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/calebripple.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/calebripple.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/calebripple.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1496"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/calebripple.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1496\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/calebripple.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1496"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/calebripple.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1496"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/calebripple.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1496"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}