So Lovedfeatured

The weeks between Thanksgiving and Christmas are a season of conflict. Our Christian faith celebrates the birth of the one in whom all enduring hope, love, joy, and peace reside – Jesus. Concurrently, our consumer culture tries to convince us that we will find love, joy, peace and hope when we invest in festive decorations, food, parties, gifts, and the perfect ugly sweater. For many of us, the “most wonderful time of the year” is a tug-of-war between competing priorities.

There is nothing wrong with participating in many of our Christmas traditions, but don’t expect a great party or the perfect Christmas tree to deliver what Jesus came to provide: an eternity of love, joy, and peace. As much as I love a good Christmas party, the reality is that the pleasures of our Christmas culture are short-lived. They cannot impart what can only come from a relationship with Jesus Christ. The joy, love, hope and peace that we long for cannot be found in temporary trappings of Christmas.

Sadly, I am very prone to the allure of those sparkly temporary temptations. Yet I am called to make space for Jesus in my Christmas instead of giving him the leftovers of my time. How do I move Jesus to the top of my to-do list instead of relegating him to the low priority of “if I have time”?

Perhaps gratitude is key to re-arranging our Christmas priorities. What if we each committed to spending a few minutes each morning In God’s Word to remind ourselves of his extravagant love for us?  Here are a few of the many reminders God provides in his Word:

• “But I trust in your unfailing love; my heart rejoices in your salvation. I will sing the Lord’s praise for he has been good to me” (Psalm 13:5-6).
• “Surely your goodness and love will follow me all the days of my life, and I will dwell in the house of the Lord forever” (Psalm 23:6).
• “For I am convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither the present nor the future, nor any powers, neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord” (Romans 8:38-39).
• ^“But because of his great love for us, God, who is rich in mercy, made us alive with Christ even when we were dead in transgressions—it is by grace you have been saved” (Ephesians 2:4-5).

With the help of the Holy Spirit, gratitude become the fertile ground for setting our priorities each day. The hope, love, peace, and joy that we long for begins to fill our hearts and spills over into our thoughts and behaviors. Gratitude leads us to a Christmas celebration with eternal value.

This painting is based on John 3:16: ^“For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life.” I hope it will remind each of us that we are “so loved” by our Creator. Out of that lavish love he provided us with the ultimate Christmas gift, Jesus Christ. I pray that our hearts are filled with gratitude this season.  Let the words of the apostle Paul be in our hearts and on our lips as we set our priorities each day: “Thanks be to God for his indescribable gift!” (2 Corinthians 9:15).