The Grandeur of Christmas and The Son of God

By Ilyan Kei Lavanway

This book shares personal thoughts intended to illustrate the majesty and condescension of Jesus Christ, whose birth and life we celebrate. May the Holy Ghost open to our spiritual eyes an eternal vista through which we may begin to understand how profoundly our Heavenly Father loves us, and how intimately we are connected to our Heavenly Parents, and to the Firstling of the Father, and to the Holy Ghost, who is also a spirit offspring of our Heavenly Father. If we ponder the premortal role of Jesus Christ, who was called Jehovah in premortal life, we can see that Jesus has been around for a long time. Look at all those galaxies and clusters of galaxies, each composed of trillions of stars and planets. They were all created by Jesus Christ. He is our creator. Under Heavenly Father’s direction, Jesus created all those magnificent cosmic structures, and many, many more that we have not yet discovered. He made all those creations long before he made this earth. He adorned the heavens with glorious cosmic lights. We decorate Christmas trees with beautiful earthly lights. Imagine being a royal prince, like Jesus, the firstborn prince of the God of gods, and the creator of worlds that cannot be numbered by man, even more than all the grains of sand on all the beaches on Earth. That Divine Prince, even Jesus of Nazareth, condescended, came down to this earth which he had created after creating countless other earths. He was born onto this earth, into a mortal body, having a mortal mother, Mary, and a Heavenly Father, Elohim. That is what it means when he is called the Only Begotten Son of God. It means Jesus is the only child of our Heavenly Father that received both his spirit body and his mortal body through Heavenly Father. He received his spirit body from Heavenly Father and Heavenly Mother, but he received his mortal body from Heavenly Father and mortal Mary. Thus, he is the only one begotten in the flesh by Heavenly Father. The rest of us are begotten in the spirit by our Heavenly Parents, and we are begotten in the flesh by our earthly parents. Merry Christmas, and may God bless each of us in the coming years.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Ilyan Kei Lavanway
• Release date: Dec 30, 2016
• ISBN: 9781370704729

Ilyan Kei Lavanway

Ilyan Kei Lavanway is a proliferate yet undiscovered and unheralded Christian author. He served as a full-time missionary for two years in Argentina for The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, 1986-1988. Since 2005, he has written and published over two dozen books of various lengths, ranging from a few pages to almost five-hundred pages. His education includes a Bachelor of Arts degree in Mathematics from the University of Washington, Seattle, and a Master of Science degree in Space Studies from the University of North Dakota, Grand Forks.Mr. Lavanway is married and has an autistic son who has Down's syndrome. Mr. Lavanway grew up in Wenatchee and Waterville, Washington State. He is the oldest of nine siblings, seven of whom are living. He spent his high school summers driving wheat trucks and combines during harvest, earning cash to support his first love, the love of flight. He was an avid private pilot in his teens.Ironically, for all his love of aviation, Mr. Lavanway's fourteen years in the United States Air Force never landed him a flight crew assignment. Nope. He was kicking it subterranean school in a capsule beneath the North Dakota plains as an ICBM launch officer for his first four years of service, followed by a year of really uninteresting work in a vault, on base. His next two years took him up near the Canadian border, to the giant, phased array space surveillance and early warning radar site outside Cavalier, North Dakota.Then, he was off to California. Academic assignments filled the final seven years of his military service. By the time he was medically retired from active duty, he had discovered his passion for writing.Since life has thrown him a few curves that make it impractical for him to return to flying airplanes any time soon, he has poured his heart into the written word.Mr. Lavanway feels he has a God-given gift and responsibility to express eternal principles that will point sincere readers to the scriptures, to the living apostles, to the restored gospel of Jesus Christ, and ultimately to a personal relationship with God the Father, and with God's Only Begotten Son Jesus Christ, and with the Holy Ghost.

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The Grandeur of Christmas and The Son of God

Smashwords Edition

by Ilyan Kei Lavanway

Copyright 2016 Ilyan Kei Lavanway

Published by Ilyan Kei Lavanway at Smashwords

Foreword by Sonja Lorrigan Hopkins

Cover image courtesy of:

http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/spaceimages/details.php?id=PIA20920

This work may be freely shared, copied, printed, and distributed for the enjoyment and edification of everyone.

This work is the sole responsibility of the author and includes the author’s personal insights. It is not an official publication of any organization.

This written work was originally presented as a talk by Ilyan Kei Lavanway during a Christmas devotional, 24 December 2016, at Victorias First Ward, Cadiz Philippines Stake. This talk has been published in print and eBook formats for your convenience.

This written work includes the lyrics of two LDS Hymns: O God, the Eternal Father (Hymn 175) and If You Could Hie to Kolob (Hymn 284), for the purpose of illustration.

Dedicated to

Babygirl Menchie Javellana Lavanway

Contents

Foreword by Sonja Lorrigan Hopkins

Opening Remarks

Condescension

Myriad