Shalom Aleichem...
Reflections is a weekly Christian Teaching Ministry. Each week we will talk about the Bible and lessons we can put to use in our daily life. We will try to, on a weekly basis, provide to you stories, thoughts, and just easy ways to live your life on a straight path.
THIS WEEK'S TEACHING....January 2, 2023
Christmas time is one of my favorite times of the year. Since I was a child I could not wait for Christmas to come, I would begin making my list in September. Christmas was a big deal for us and although we didn’t have a lot of money and didn’t get much throughout the year, Christmas made up for all that, my Mom would work three jobs in order to provide during the year and take on another one during Christmas so she could make it a blessing to us.
In many ways I continue that tradition with my own family, our wallets stay tight throughout the year but at Christmas time we open them up and air them out. I love the atmosphere of Christmas, I listen to the music whenever I am in the car, I enjoy, except for the crowds, the bargain hunting, but most of all I enjoy shopping for my wife, Terry, teasing her all month long about the “surprise gifts” I was not suppose to get her. It’s the giving I love the most and Christmas gives us a chance to relax a little and enjoy this season.
But this season is more than the giving and the gifts. It’s a time when Christians who for the most part should have been honoring Christ all year long get to really rejoice even more and use this time of year to share Christ with others.
We hear people all the time complain about the commercialization of Christmas, and to that I say I can’t help what the world does with this holiday but I know I can do my best to represent the spirit and message of this season.
This reminds me of a story I heard about a lady who frantically rushing around the mall was trying to finish last minute Christmas shopping. She along with everyone else was trying to find the “hot Gift of the season. She hurried about in the store dragging her little girls behind her.
FINALLY she succeeded in finding the gift. She snatched the last one just before another person reached for it. Feeling victorious she rushed to the elevator; as the car doors opened to the elevator there was the rush of people getting off and the simultaneous rush of people getting on. The lady grabbed her daughter’s hand, shouted for her to come on and she shoved her way in. As the doors closed someone shouted “Whoever got this Christmas thing started needs to be shot! A quiet voice from the back of the elevator said” Don’t worry…they already crucified Him. An awkward silence filled the elevator.
As I began to put together what I would share in this teaching, I began to retrace my thoughts and pray I begin to think of something different I began to challenge myself to take this message of our Saviors birth and start looking for hidden nuggets and deliver a deep and profound teaching that would leave you in awe, then I thought about going a different direction and talk about why we like the imagery of Christ as a baby, or even taken holiday songs and showing you the Gospel message, I even began to think of a sermon while watching an old Disney cartoon called Small One about the unwanted donkey that was bought by Joseph to carry Mary to Bethlehem.
But I was reminded of my original message as I looked at our Christmas tree and the gifts under it, I began to think about how gifting has become almost an art form. How gifts are now elaborately wrapped even if you are one to use gift bags you still look for a nice bag to show how much you care about the person.
1Pe 2:24 "He himself bore our sins” in his body on the cross, so that we might die to sins and live for righteousness; “by his wounds you have been healed.”
Please picture in your minds me holding up a bag of trash. This bag represents sin and the dirty discarded and unwanted things of life; just as Adam and Eve used fig leaves to hide their sin, this bow represents our best efforts to hide ours. No matter how we try to hide our sins or whatever our approach is it doesn’t change what is inside. But under this tree God will pick through and discard the junk but will clean up what can still be used.
Isa 1:18 “Come now, let us settle the matter,” says the Lord.“Though your sins are like scarlet,
they shall be as white as snow; though they are red as crimson, they shall be like wool.
Re 3:5 The one who is victorious will, like them, be dressed in white. I will never blot out the name of that person from the book of life, but will acknowledge that name before my Father and his angels.
Continue to picture now and me holding up an empty box – You would never place an empty box under a tree. No matter how great it looks, the fact it is empty makes it disappointing, you would never do that to a child or anyone else on Christmas.
This box may be Beautiful on the outside but it’s empty on the inside. Just as we too carry with us emptiness a void that we try to feel with sin, etc… But God can take an empty vessel and fill it with purpose, hope, life, strength, etc…
Ps 34:22 The Lord will rescue his servants; no one who takes refuge in him will be condemned.
Growing up, we were told never to shake our gifts because they may break but we would never be given or give a broken gift.
• Everything on the outside looks normal but inside it is full of broken pieces. While we reject broken packages God accepts them and takes the time to put it back together.
Ps 34:18 "The Lord is close to the brokenhearted and saves those who are crushed in spirit."
We may regift a gift but we know not to cross the line and give a used unwanted item. We know a gifts value is not determined by its price but when we give something that we know that it no longer holds any value we are giving a worthless thoughtless gift.
• God takes the used, valueless, and worn out and refurbishes it and makes it new by cleaning up and replacing the damaged pieces. There may still be some scratches but He buffs them out, there may be some dings but He smoothes them out.
2Cor 5:17 "Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, the new creation has come:[a] The old has gone, the new is here!"
What God gave was the ultimate gift. He gave His Son:
John 3:16 For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have everlasting life.
If our greatest need had been information, God would have sent us an educator, if our greatest need had been technology, God would have sent us a scientist, if our greatest need had been money, God would have sent us an economist, if our greatest need would had been pleasure, God would have sent us an entertainer, but our greatest need was forgiveness, so God sent us a Savior.
He came from a mansion to manager, from the streets of gold to a stable cold, from royal robes to swaddling clothes, from His Father’s world to a Jewish girl, from the angels’ praise to the shepherds’ gaze, from that city afar to a wise man’s star, from perfection to rejection, from the throne room of God to the stable’s sod, from all that’s good and pure and holy to all that’s base and vile and lowly, from His humble beginnings to His sacrifice on the cross, He took a crown of thorns and made it a Crown of Glory for you and I.
In the coming year, family, may the Lord Bless you all with the Most Important Three Things in our lives....The Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. These are the Greatest Gifts we could ask for. I love you all:)
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