Wednesday, December 10, 2008

Christmas Season


It is Christmas time again this year. What a great time to think about the sacrifice that God has provided for our sins with His Son! How can we be anything except thankful and humble at the thought of that. And yet, we go about carelessly sinning and taking for granted the grace and mercy that God bestows on each and every one of His adopted children.


Especially this time of year, the focus should be on the true meaning of Christmas, the birth of Christ and the ransom He paid for our sins and how WONDERFUL that gift is. Despite the fact that we have received the most wonderful gift in the world, and on a daily (minute by minute some days), receive continued forgiveness and grace from God for the numerous sins we still commit...... yet we still have wants and desires that we think NEED to be met at Christmas. How could we want for more? Except maybe to share the truth of God's saving grace to others?


So when you think about what your most fond Christmas memory is.... do you ever question the reason it is the most fond memory? Does it have anything to do with Christ? or just the commercial / material Xmas that the seems to dominate our thoughts this time of year?


My most fond memory as a child was at my Grama Pollard's house on Christmas Eve (we used to always be at her house on Christmas Eve evening). Nearly the entire family was there. I remember reading the story of the birth of Jesus from Luke (pretty sure my Aunt Melissa read it this year) and then someone started up some music and we all began dancing (jitterbug, square dancing, twist, we did it all). :) It isn't very often that so much laughter errupts from the house when the entire family is present, but it did that Christmas Eve. It was a FANTASTIC memory, and I don't have any idea what I got for a present that year.


That is the type of memory I hope to pass along to my daughter. Pray with me that we can change and take the commercialism "X" out of Xmas and put Christ back into Christmas.