Christmas Brings Out The Best in Us!

The city lights have now become giant snowflakes.  One by one, homes are adorn with lights and wreaths and mangers and the words, Merry Christmas.  The sounds of Christmas are being heard loud and clear.  Choirs are singing Joy to the World and Silent Night is heard in the background as shoppers walk through the stores to find that perfect gift for their loved ones.  Jesus is now the topic of conversation.  Jesus is now at the center for billions around the world.  Jesus gets the attention and the praise he deserves.  It is Christmas!  It is Christmas! 

Christmas is unlike any other holiday.  Christmas brings out the best in most everyone.  Christmas is love and faith, and Jesus.  Christmas is hope and peace.  Christmas is gifts and laughter.  Christmas is family!  Christmas is kindness and generosity and joy!

When we get right down to it, Christmas should be three hundred sixty-five days of living.  Everything Christmas brings out in each of us should be lived out January through November, too.   Jesus said, “Let me give you a new command: Love one another. In the same way I loved you, you love one another. This is how everyone will recognize that you are my disciples—when they see the love you have for each other.” (MSG)  Living the Jesus life will help a child in May.  It will give food to the hungry in August.  It will put clothes on someone is March.  It will walk two or three miles with someone who is hurting in October.  It will pray over someone who is struggling with sin in July.  It will open the doors of opportunity to tell the Jesus story in April. 

The essence of Christmas is sharing and giving to those in need.  We have a tendency to rally our givers together in December to give to those less fortunate.  However, when January rolls around, we are proud of what we’ve accomplished in December and we begin to quickly forget those who we helped and need up more January through November.    

If Christmas is celebrating Jesus, then we must also do it with the intentions of telling them that his birth is so significant that it will change your life.  The angel of the Lord told Joseph in a dream that the baby Mary was going to deliver would be the savior of the world.  His name will be called Jesus because he will save everyone from sin. 

Giving Jesus was a demonstration of God’s gift to us.  John 3:16 says “This is how much God loved the world: He gave his Son, his one and only Son….” (MSG)  God didn’t stop sharing, and loving and being kind and generous at the birth of Jesus, it was only the beginning of what was to come.  God continue to demonstrate his gift giving and “love for us: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us.” Romans 5:8 (NIV) God isn’t a one-month giver out of the year; rather, he is continually seeking to ensure we have all that we need. 

The best gift any of us will ever receive is the gift of salvation.  Being saved is a huge load off our minds and it puts us in a right relationship with God.  There is no magical formula to receiving the gift.  All it takes is a desire for the gift.  Make this Christmas the most memorable of them all by making Jesus your Lord and Savior.  By allowing him to live daily in your life and by resurrecting into the new life that Scripture calls baptism.  

May this Christmas be a time of joy and giving and loving!  Mostly, may is be a time of receiving the most significant gift of them all, the gift of salvation.  If you want to know more, call me at 931-545-7543. 

Remember, Be God Controlled!

Brian