Christmas time is something I look forward to all year round. I have been known to say “it’s almost Christmas” in June and July and I certainly do not follow the unwritten rule of waiting to play Christmas music until after Thanksgiving. But now that Thanksgiving has past my excitement for Christmas seems a little more in place. One of the reasons I look forward to Christmas is that I really enjoy exchanging gifts. It helps me get out self, out of what I want and it helps me focus on others.
From today’s reading a header in Michah chapter 5 ESV reads ‘The Ruler to Be Born in Bethlehem’. God gives us a perfect example of being focused on others. He knows us better than we know ourselves. He knows exactly what we need. And on the ‘first Christmas’ He gave us the perfect gift. When we celebrate Christmas we all try to find that perfect gift. It requires us to know people and to be thinking about them, focused on them and wanting better for them. We give gifts the best way we know how.
This Christmas may we all consider giving the gift of ourselves to our Savior and to His children. May we all lay down our wills, our kingdoms, and allow Him to reign in our hearts. May we store up treasure in heaven by letting go of the stuff of this world and giving to those in need, that which we have been given in so much excess.
12 He said also to the man who had invited him, “When you give a dinner or a banquet, do not invite your friends or your brothers or your relatives or rich neighbors, lest they also invite you in return and you be repaid. 13 But when you give a feast, invite the poor, the crippled, the lame, the blind, 14 and you will be blessed, because they cannot repay you. For you will be repaid at the resurrection of the just.” – Luke 14: 12-14
It’s almost Christmas!