Christmas Season: Is Christ In You?

At every point in the history of mankind, God provided spiritual palliative measures in order to ensure that his most favourite creature does not wonder off into eternal oblivion. According to the Old Tastement of the Holy Scriptures, God Himself ordered for the blood of animals to be offered as sacrifices for the atonement of misdeeds and sins.

As the years progressed, it became eminent that these pattern of pleading for forgiveness, was fast expiring. Man had become a vessel of many sins and something drastic needed to be done.

In Trinitarian Christianity, it is believed that God became incarnate as Jesus, sacrificing his son to accomplish the reconciliation of God and humanity, which had separated itself from God through sin. Many 2nd millennium Theologians have maintained that God's justice required an atonement for sin from humanity, if human beings were to be restored to their place in creation and saved from damnation.

However, God knew that human beings could not make sufficient atonement, for humanity's transgression to God was measureless, so God created a covenant with Abraham, which he fulfilled when he sent his only begotten Son to become the sacrifice for the broken covenant. In Christian theology, this sacrifice replaced the insufficient animal sacrifice of the Old Covenant; Christ the "Lamb of God" replaced the lambs' sacrifice of the ancient Korban Todah (the Rite of Thanksgiving), chief of which is the Passover in the Mosaic law.

Christ represents the end of an old order, and the beginning of a new movement. God sought to put an end to sacrifice for sins; man must now freely worship his creator without the burden of malfeasance. One of the sins that troubled man so much was hate. Hatred is a cancer that eats up the human spirit. The more you hate, the more you destroy your spiritual link with God.

Personally, I am of the view that Christ permanently put an end to sin (hate). If you have Christ in you, then you cannot hate. But many older Theologians like my Mum, Evangelist Joyce Okocha, are still stuck to the old believe that man still has the ultimate choice to make in the walk of righteousness.

Whatever the case is, as we celebrate the birthday of our Lord and Saviour today, we must ask ourselves these salient questions: is Christ in you? If Christ is in you, then why do you hate Muslims, Hinduists, Pegans, or members of other religious sects or even members of a different Christian fold? Did Christ ever preach hate?

As a Christian, have you replicated God's love to humanity? What impact have you brought to your immediate environment? Why are you praying for the destruction of your enemies? Is that why Christ was born?

Merry Christmas everyone.