Happy Birthday!

In the Spring of 1970, I was 10 years old. My uncle would drive a church bus around town and pick up children for church and he always came to my house first. One night he picked me up to attend a revival service. When I got to church, I went into the sanctuary and sat on the third row from the back and three seats in from the outside aisle. When the preaching began, I did not participate in the normal activity of writing notes and passing it to my friends, I listened intently through the entire message. When the invitational song was in process something started stirring inside of me. For the first time, I realized that even at 10 years old, I needed to commit to live my life as a follower of Christ, or I was going to live an eternity separated from God. I felt the Holy Spirit pick me up and walk me down the aisle. I visited with the preacher and surrendered my life to Jesus Christ as the words, ‘I come, I come’ were being sung. Though at 10 years old my life did not take a huge change in direction, it determined the direction I was going to walk for the remainder of my life. I might not have had to turn from drugs or alcohol but it kept me from it. I might not have had to leave a life of wild parties and self indulgence but it kept me from it. Oh, I still sinned but the grace of God kept me close and forgiven.
The salvation I experienced and hopefully you have experienced, would not have been possible without the most important person of the Christmas story which was Jesus. His love for us drove Him to leave His throne in Heaven where He was in His Father’s presence every moment, where angels were surrounding Him singing praises with every breath, and where sin wasn’t present. He was willing to leave all of this and be born a helpless baby, in a lowly manger. His needs would now be met by a mother and an earthly father. He had surrendered His heavenly position. He grew into a man and then offered His life, through physical abuse and crucifixion, to pay the sacrificial price for our sins and redeem us from the grip of evil. Because of this sacrifice we now can have hope, love, peace, endurance, and joy. We can have the assurance that we will live out our eternal life in the presence of God. All we have to do is accept Jesus as our Savior and be spiritually born again.
Today is the birthday of our Savior. Because of His birthday we can each have a spiritual birthday. Do you have a spiritual birthday? If not, there is no better time to get one!