The Season Of Giving

Well Christmas is coming into view and we all know what that means, time off from work, church services and gifts. It happens every year; we wake up on December 25th to find gifts under the tree from our family members. Once December 1st passes and it is “safe” to start thinking about Christmas we all start our lists of things we want, gift cards, DVD’s (I’ve noticed they don’t make VHS’s anymore) books, all sorts of stuff. Gifts are great, I like giving and receiving gifts and even Jesus got gifts from the wise men at His birth, but as with all good things when they are taken to extremes there is a certain danger. I remember while listening to Christmas music on the radio (gotta love Boston’s favorite Christmas songs) I heard an advertisement from some store (that narrows it down), but the ad was about the treasures of the season, and what were these treasures? Handbags, shoes, necklaces (none apply to me). That is the danger, as great as gifts are and as fun as they are to give and receive we can’t let them fog up our view of what Christmas is really about. It’s great to get all sorts of cool stuff but basically that is what it is, it’s stuff. Stuff is great I like stuff, but we can’t let stuff be the base of our lives or happiness, that’s Jesus’ spot. I’ll ask everyone this, on Christmas morning (or with some families Christmas Eve) when you are opening your gifts don’t’ forget the greatest gift of all that we recieved because God loves us so much and because of His grace that on that warm night we all recieved a gift, His son and our savior Jesus.