Hello friend, I hope you and your family experienced a Thanksgiving with memories that will last a lifetime. Let’s take a few minutes and talk about Christmas! I think everyone realizes the commercial businesses have been preparing for the Christmas season since Halloween. As I thought about this while writing to you this thought came to mind; “what would happen in our churches if we would take months to prayerfully and purposefully prepare for Christmas?”
Businesses with a well thought out and well executed plan are very successful during the Christmas shopping season. Actually they make their operating budget for the coming year during this season. That’s impressive business.
Sadly, Christmas is a one and done event in our churches and it shouldn’t be this way. Christmas should be a spring board for the coming year. Christmas should set a tone and mood inside the church where the heart beats to introduce others to Jesus Christ and share the wonderful work God is doing in our lives, our families and our congregations! What greater inspiration do we need?
I’m not suggesting we commercialize church. I’m suggesting we simplify church, deprogram our lives and seek a powerful moving of the Holy Spirit to bring our hearts back to having a burden for the spiritual needs of our neighbors, communities and even our country.
At Christmas we celebrate the birth of Jesus Christ; our Lord and savior. When the celebration is over and the plays and gatherings are memories we have a tendency to resume business as usual. Christmas doesn’t extend beyond January 1st. But it should! This year let Christmas establish in your heart a spiritual economy that provides the energy you need to operate the entire year. From this energy you will find Gods direction for your life and how that direction is played out daily. When we genuinely become interested in the lives of others and their relationship with God we can and will experience the Joy of Christmas year round. I believe that’s what God wants for His church. Let’s experience Christmas as a desire for God that builds daily throughout the year and is shared daily through our personal relationship with Jesus Christ. Let Christmas draw us closer to the Lord and become ever sensitive to His desires for our lives. Yes, we will be challenged to a sincerity that many of us have not yet experienced but we need to. A sincerity, among other things, of love, worship, obedience, fellowship and faith that meets real life. From it we will grow throughout the year from Gods Christmas gift to mankind, the Lord Jesus Christ. Until next time may God bless you is my prayer.
Older
Top
