The Gift of the Season
Dear Friends,
I love Christmas! I enjoy the annual tradition of Christmas shopping and present hunting. I see it as a challenge and adventure – especially when it comes to family gift-giving. When I buy a gift for them, I want it to be practical! Santa might bring us what we deserve; God, however, delivers something we don’t deserve. ‘For the wages of sin is death,’ says the Bible, ‘but the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord’ (Romans 6:23). God’s practical gift to us, then, is forgiveness.
In the run-up to Christmas, we do lots of tidying, preparing and cleaning – sprucing up our lives. Jesus helps us through this process - he encourages us to focus first on our inside world. ‘Blessed are the pure in heart, for they will see God’ (Matthew 5:8). The Message version reads, ‘You’re blessed when you get your inside world — your mind and heart — put right. Then you can see God in the outside world.’ Jesus’ practical gift is to cleanse our hearts. This changes us from the inside out, transforming our attitudes and actions.
However, we must first want the gift in order to receive it. We need to pray with the psalmist, who said, ‘Create in me a pure heart, O God, and renew a steadfast spirit within me’ (Psalm 51:10). Are we hungry for what God has to offer? Jesus was born in Bethlehem, which literally means ‘the House of Bread’. Later in his life, he spoke about himself, saying, ‘I am the bread of life. Whoever comes to me will never go hungry, and whoever believes in me will never be thirsty’ (John 6:35). Bread satisfies and strengthens, and Jesus came into the world to satisfy and strengthen us all. But this isn’t, as we have already seen, a gift to be received passively. It’s practical by its very nature. When we receive Jesus, we also receive his Spirit, which helps us to live a brand new kind of life – with love, joy, peace, gentleness, patience, self-control and humility.
Remember, ‘life without Christ is a hopeless end, but life with Christ is an endless hope.’
Wishing you a blessed Christmas,
Derek+
Enjoy this beautiful Christmas carol ‘Oh Little Town Of Bethlehem’ recorded by my friend David Clifton with the Peterborough Cathedral choir in the UK.
