Use Christmas to reconcile and make peace - Christians told

Reverend Monica A. Achana of the Methodist Church Ghana, Wa-Bolgatanga Circuit, has urged Christians to use the occasion of Christmas to reconcile and make peace with people they may be at logger heads with.

She said the celebration of Christmas was to remind Christians of the unconditional love of God for mankind saying, “His birth is the restoration and the redemption work of Jesus Christ to reconcile the human race with God.”

Rev. Achana said this in Wa at the weekend in her message to the world to mark the birthday celebration of Jesus Christ, referred to as Christmas. Christians over the world regard 25th December as the birth date of Jesus Christ and undertake diverse activities to mark the day.

Rev. Achana explained that people celebrated the day in diverse ways with different motives including merry-making with expensive alcoholic drinks, sewing new dresses, begging for alms with Christmas boxes, and engaging in amorous relationships among others.

However, she stressed that the prime motive for the celebration of Christmas was to create an opportunity for people to exhibit God’s love for man through reconciliation with one another.

She explained that Jesus was born to bear the burden of the human race and quoted a section of the Holy Bible that says: “The government shall be upon His shoulders.”

“He carried the world on His shoulders. On His shoulders rested the hope of the human race. He was the King who brought God’s rule to us,” she added.

According to her the burden on the shoulders of man, which Jesus Christ came to bear was the sins committed by Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden, which separated man from God.

“The Good News is that restoration of the fallen man to His original place in creation and his relationship with God has already been accomplished”, she observed.

The Rev. Minister said every Christian needed to answer seven fundamental questions to assess his or her relationship with God in “these terrible and perilous times.”

They were: Who am I? Where am I?; Why am I here?; Where do I go from here?; How do I get there?; When do I start and when do I end?, and What will I be remembered for?

“Since we will be called to give account to God, we need to take stock of our time to be able to manage it to the glory of God,” Rev. Achana said. She appealed to all Ghanaians to pray for a stable economy to bring hope and prosperity in 2023 and beyond.