Do You Deserve a Christmas Present?

(Editors note: Please note that this post isn’t judging anyone that gives or receives presents. I am just sharing my thoughts.)

It’s the middle of December, which means that everywhere, every newspaper and every radio station, we are being serenaded with Christmas music. “It’s the must wonderful time of the year.”

Cue the record scratch. Wonderful?

Well, Christmas should be the most wonderful time of the year, but often, instead of celebrating what matters, we all get caught up in our culture’s consumerist Christmas mindset. The stress starts long before December and that stress stays with us all long after you’ve left the mall. Then you wake up in January with a holiday spending hangover. Yuck.

Friends, it doesn’t have to be this way.

We can all take a step back and turn our focus on Him.

I know, it’s tough to go against the grain, but I think we should refocus and shift our perspective of what Christmas really means.

I know, it is going to take courage and faith.

I get that. Everybody asked, “What do you want for Christmas?”

What is your answer?

A computer, a new horse or is it just quiet time with our families?

My goal is to turn the focus on HIM while keeping less spiritual traditions in check.

Do we really deserve a present?

Did we already get the present of Life?

I don’t know about you, but it seems to me that the idea of gift giving can get carried away.

I want to bring it back to the good ol’ day days. Don’t you?

Rather, then all the gifts, I want to remember the gift that God has given to each of us. I want to give all year around.

It really is the only gift that truly keeps on giving and giving, so I here are my four points:

First, God’s gift to us was a complete surprise. It was not expected, and as you examine it more carefully, you realize how great a gift it actually was.

Second, God’s gift came wrapped in rags and was laid in a feeding trough. Think about that. It is a humbling thought. He wasn’t wrapped in a pretty bow or expensive paper. Jesus was born in a stable, in the straw. God’s gift to us, the ultimate gift of eternal life through His Son, Jesus Christ, came in the simplest and humblest wrapping.

Third, do we deserve this gift. Think about who you give gifts to: those who you care about and those that have been kind to us. We don’t tend to give gifts to the people that we don’t really like, don’t have a relationship with or who we don’t feel deserve it. Yet God gave us his gift when we all were his enemies. He didn’t give this gift to us because we deserved it. It was just the opposite of that. “But God commedeth his love toward us, in that, while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us.” (Roman 5:8)

Fourth, the gift tell us something about the giver. Think about it, when you want to give someone a gift, we starting thinking about it ahead of time. We think about what they like, what color they like and etc. When God decided to give us the gift of eternal life, he just didn’t throw it at us. Long before there was a town called Bethlehem, a garden called Eden, and a planet called Earth, there was a decision that was made in eternity that God would send forth His only son, born to a women that wasn’t supposed to have kids. “And all that dwell upon the earth shall worship him, whose names are not written in the book of life of the Lamb slain from the foundation of the world.” (Revelation 13:8)

So Christmas isn’t about those gifts that we may or may not receive. You see, those gifts are just things that we all know will be gone some day. We cannot take them to our graves. We all know that after this life the human soul will be the only thing that lives on.

Life is about what happens beyond the grave. Life is about knowing the God who made you and me and who gave us the greatest gift you will ever receive.

Take a think, do you deserve a Christmas present?

Happy Monday, dear friends!