From the archives of Oral Roberts – First of two parts
Even though it’s Christmas time, there are millions of people who feel an emptiness in their lives. They have no meaning for their existence. They are filled with boredom and monotony. And yet, every Christmas the question is asked, “What is the meaning of Christmas to you?”
I want to turn the question around and ask you: WHAT IS THE MEANING OF YOUR LIFE TO CHRISTMAS? What is your reaction to it as an event, as a force in your life?
Perhaps an event has crossed your path that made you strike at others, or maybe even strike at God. But God, through His Son, Jesus Christ, brought an event in the form of a Savior, who reached out with gentle and powerful hands to stroke you, to stroke me — the love stroking of God as He stroked us and spoke to us. He speaks to the inner core of our being. He speaks to the God part of us, to that part that He has made in His own spiritual and moral image.
I remember feeling those love strokes as I was growing up. I didn’t always know what they were. From time to time I feel them now. I didn’t know God was trying to reawaken the God-part within me. I didn’t know there was a transcendent power that I could call upon, that God was speaking to my inner man saying: “Rise up! Assert yourself! Take command! Be the master, through grace, that I created you to be!” I didn’t know that. And maybe you don’t know it now. Maybe you feel the monotony of life, that your life is not worthwhile, that there’s no meaning for your existence as an individual in our human world.
But there is a hand stretching out. What is your reaction to that hand as it strokes that deeper part of you, that life of God within, and tries to bring Him to the forefront?
I’m sure there is a meaning of Christmas to you, but our Lord Jesus gave us this meaning when He said:
The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because be hath anointed me to preach the gospel to the poor; he hath sent me to heal the brokenhearted, to preach deliverance to the captives, and recovering of sight to the blind, to set at liberty them that are bruised, to preach [proclaim] the acceptable year of the Lord (Luke 4:18˗19).