As we reflect on Christmas this year, it is difficult to rise our feelings; worries, anxieties, pains and tragedies the year 2020 dropped on us right from the moment the Corona Pandemic crept to into almost every corner of our communities and our lives.

Sharing a thought from Michael Ramsden, President of Ravi Zacharias International Ministries, who has traveled the globe and spoken to thousands of people in challenging times, he noted that “more than ever, peace and goodwill are in short supply. Yet peace and goodwill are precisely what are needed right now. Christ’s promise of peace did not come accompanied with new political resolutions, promises to do better or try harder, or even a sustained media campaign. The birth in a stable could hardly have had more humble origins; yet that promise, contained within a wooden manger, and fulfilled on a wooden cross, offers the only chance of lasting peace we have.”

The hope for the persecuted Church in Nigeria is the profound peace and assurance we have in Christ and in Him alone. Not in governments or vain political promises. Not in security organs whose integrity to provide and ensure peace is questionable nor in vain words of men, but ‘in Christ alone is our hope anchored. 

The gift of God in the little boy laying in a manger, the boy who is to be king, the gift that is for generations and for eternity, is available to us all given without any preconditions. And to all who believe Him and who receive Him, He has given the power and special privilege to be come the sons of the living God.

This gift for all mankind is our only sure way to the peace God gives which no man, no matter how highly placed or influential or powerful can ever give. Only God alone can and He has done that through Jesus Christ.

To the Persecuted Church, Primate Henry Ndukuba says, “trust in the Lord always and lean not on any man. Man is not God.” When we depend on Christ we will never be disappointed.

 

Reference

Michael Ramsden RZIM