There is much written and spoken and misunderstood concerning this subject, as if election was some incomprehensible mystery which imparted some greater than expected reward to those who presumed themselves to be the recipients of such choice.

In our very being, our being born, the choice of our existence is not our own. Election is a free gift. How could our being born be based on works? God elected to give life, not on works (for how could it be other wise?) but on His choice. Does this sound surprising?

Just believing you are a Christian and 'saved' does not guarantee that this is so. While it is true that a man is saved by his faith in Christ, presuming you have faith and actually having faith are two distinct things.

The Law states that there must be death for sin.  In some cases that meant literal death, that is stoning to death the offender, but otherwise it necessitated a sacrificial offering for sin – the death of an animal, by the shedding of blood, as an offering on behalf of the penitent.  It can be seen then, under Law, that while there is no mercy for some sin, there is mercy for other sin, but only through the shedding of blood in an intermediary offering.  While this gives us insight, in relation to Christ and His offering for sin, it also poses problems in the hearts of some legal-minded men.

All too often we hear said of the church that it is no longer relevant to today’s world.  Statements along that line conjure up images for us of an archaic system of beliefs that have no place in our modern ‘enlightened’ understanding of the world.  They also make us look at the traditional churches in the same way we tend to look at the monarchy, as a quaint, if not absurd, relic of a bygone age.

Christmas marks the calender like an indelible marker, for as much as you know that its arrival is meaningless nevertheless its passing always registers somehow upon you.  Of course this is understandable when you consider how long you are hounded, night and day, by the merchants anxious to receive your generosity, or more poignantly by various media outlets so overcome with Christmas cheer that they insist on joining with you by orchestrating a mass outpouring of yuletide fervour in carols by candlelight.  What is not understandable is that the world has not allowed this obvious recipe for unbridled nausea and cynicism to put an end to the charade.  There must therefore be, hidden under all the tinsel, some profound need in man that he has fulfilled through Christmas.  Why else would he bother?