Please find below Sam Karl's notes from the Elder's Prayer Christmas morning, December 25, 2016, Christ is God in human flesh. We are sending prior comments that were not posted to the blog to aid in edifying the church through reflection of these prayer lead times.

During one of the 7 debates between Abraham Lincoln and Stephen A. Douglas when they both were running for the senate seat race in 1858, Mr. Douglas accused Lincoln of being two-faced. To which Lincoln calmly replied, “I leave it to my audience, if I were two-faced, would I be wearing this one?”

I was reading through the gospel accounts of Christ’s birth in the gospels. In spite of the differences in coverage of this historical event, one thing remained the same tying up all other events around it – that single consistent truth that made it across all of the gospels is that, Christ is God in human flesh.

Knowing what we know of Christ from the Scriptures, Christ would set aside His glory and choose every single time to wear a human face that we might be reconciled to the Father. May God help each of us to comprehend the eternal significance of Christmas Day and bless us with an undying love to be in His presence here on earth or in heaven. I’m going to use a prayer from one of our Puritan forefathers in Christ as this prayer completely captures my emotions and thoughts of this Christmas Day.

Let’s pray.

O source of all good, What shall I render to you for the gift of gifts, your own dear Son? Herein is

I’m going to use a prayer from one of our Puritan forefathers in Christ as this prayer completely captures my emotions and thoughts of this Christmas Day. Let’s pray. O source of all good, What shall I render to you for the gift of gifts, your own dear Son? Herein is

O source of all good, What shall I render to you for the gift of gifts, your own dear Son? Herein is

Herein is wonder of wonders: He came below to raise me above, was born like me that I might become like Him.

Herein is love; when I cannot rise to Him He draws near on wings of grace, to raise me to Himself.

Herein is power; when Deity and humanity were infinitely apart, He united them in indissoluble unity, the uncreate and the created.

Herein is wisdom; when I was undone, with no will to return to Him, and no intellect to devise recovery, He came, God-incarnate, to save me to the uttermost, as man to die my death, to shed satisfying blood on my behalf, to work out a perfect righteousness for me!

O God, take me in spirit to the watchful shepherds, and enlarge my mind!

Let me hear good tidings of great joy, and hearing, believe, rejoice, praise, adore, my conscience bathed in an ocean of repose, my eyes uplifted to a reconciled Father!

Place me with ox, donkey, camel, goat, to look with them upon my Redeemer’s face, and in Him account myself delivered from sin!

Let me with Simeon clasp the newborn child to my heart, embrace him with undying faith, exulting that He is mine and I am His!

In Him you have given me so much that heaven can give no more. Amen.