Tis the season! To buy, give, enjoy family, love, be selfless, serve, and the list goes on. Every year Christmas comes around and everywhere you look there is opportunity to give. Whether it be gifts for family members, dropping change in the Salvation Army bucket, or lending a hand at the local Soup Kitchen for some reason opportunities to give seam to bombard us this time of year. That is why this is my favorite time of year! There is so much joy in giving, so much affection and love, it humbles people and brings them together but can the spirit of giving become to preeminent in our culture? Can giving become a mask or facade fogging the truth of this season?
For Christians giving during this season is often a symbol for the gifts that were brought to the baby Jesus by the Shepherds and Wise men at his birth. Often the story of this marvelous event is the center of this holiday season for many Christians. We recall the wondrous story and honor and praise our Savior for coming to earth to save us, but is the core of this story giving? Is that what is meant for us to grasp hold and never let go of? Is that the truth of scripture as we read this story in the Gospels? I would venture to say ABSOLUTELY NOT!
For Christians giving during this season is often a symbol for the gifts that were brought to the baby Jesus by the Shepherds and Wise men at his birth. Often the story of this marvelous event is the center of this holiday season for many Christians. We recall the wondrous story and honor and praise our Savior for coming to earth to save us, but is the core of this story giving? Is that what is meant for us to grasp hold and never let go of? Is that the truth of scripture as we read this story in the Gospels? I would venture to say ABSOLUTELY NOT!
So then if the core of this story, the truth of these scriptures, for us, is not giving and love what is it? GRACE!
Isaiah 9:6 - “For to us a child is born, to us a son is given.”
We have got it all wrong! the truth of this season is not, for us, giving it is receiving. It is realizing that the Son of God was born in flesh to come and save his people. To die on the cross for the atonement of sin. It was Him that came to give and it is us who must receive and then live in light of that gift. Our God has given us THE greatest gift ever given and not because of who we are, not because of what we have done, and certainly not because we have EVER deserved it. It is only by His grace that we can breath, it is only by His grace that we can live, and it is only by His grace that we are saved! Without His son, His gift, we could do nothing!
So this season, and always, cling tight to the truth of His grace! Never lose sight of the reality of His son Jesus and his birth, death, and resurrection. When we do this, when this is our focus, our lives will be full of joy and giving. Why? because we see all that He has done for us by His grace and it humbles us thus realizing that our life is not our own. And when we realize that we ourselves will ,with the help of Holy Spirit, give everything to Him - which begins to make us more like Him - thus giving us a true heart of giving. A heart of giving that is based on and steeped in the realization of grace, not in or on our own worth or righteousness.
So give to all this season but do it in the realization of our Savior and His grace!
