God's Priceless Gift!

Hello friends!  I hope you are enjoying a great week!  I had an unwelcome visitor this past weekend... the stomach bug!  I am so glad to say I'm finally starting to feel well again!  Whew!  Glad that's over with!

Anyway... I have not had time to even look at my craft room lately so I'm going to share a "reject" card I made a few weeks ago, not intending to show it here.   I was going for a collage card to tell a story of our Saviors birth, so I loaded quite a few images on here from Our Daily Bread designs.  I began with a Baked Brown Sugar base from SU!.  I stamped the Midnight Clear Background on ivory card stock, then stamped the clock image from God's Timing, and cut with the ODBD Matting Circles dies.  I die cut a Splendorous Star , and stamped two sentiments from the Admit Three Ticket set.  I die cut them with the ticket die that comes in the Mini Tags die set.  I also stamped the image from The Babe,  colored with Copics and Pencils, and cut with a Spellbinders Curved Rectangles die.  I sponged everything with distress ink to age a bit and then simply layered them up.  I loved the sentiments on these two tickets... especially the one that says "God's Priceless Gift ~ free to bearer" 

God's priceless gift to us on that special night, when God Himself came to dwell among us... is beyond my comprehension!  Have you ever thought about what He left in heaven... to come live with us?  He came knowing what He would have to face, and the pain He would suffer!  He came because He loved us and wanted to give us a precious gift we could not earn ourselves!  He wanted us to be able to live in His presence, but  sin had separated us and there was no way we would ever be able to take care of our own sinful state!  There was no way that we could pay for our own sins, and no way we could live a sinless life.  So a substitutionary payment was provided in our perfect Savior... the Light of the World!  His priceless gift is forgiveness of sin and a future with Him in heaven if we will but receive His gift!  It's free to US, but my friends, it was anything but free to Him!  

This Christmas, as we look around the world and see it literally falling apart all around us.... let's focus our minds on eternal things!  This world is groaning with sin, and we are seeing the result of that more and more all around us!  I believe time is short until the Lord returns for His children and takes us home!  The things of this world, while alluring and desirous, are all temporary and leave us feeling empty and looking for more.  Only that precious Gift who came in to the world as a baby born in a stable, wrapped in swaddling clothes and laid in a manger in Bethlehem can give our lives eternal meaning!  Only He can cover our sins and remove them as far as the east is from the west, and remember them no more!  Only He can declare us righteous, because of His shed blood on the cross, and His victory over death!  Only He can fill us with peace... He IS our peace, and we can face uncertain tomorrows knowing that we are at peace with God, and we have the peace of God in our hearts knowing our future is secure in Him!  Let's focus on these things and give Him all the thanks, honor and glory due Him!

If I don't post again before Christmas.... I wish you and yours a most Merry Christmas, and a blessed New Year!!!