Christmas is the most difficult time of the year for a lot of people because it is a season associated with joy and love and gifts--and their own lives lack these lovely things.
When reflecting upon these expectations, it is important that we are mindful of the reality that the holiday season itself is incapable of supplying them, it can simply magnify the significance of their absence.
Rather than look to temporal things like celebrations and traditions to grant our need for love and joy or to supply our desire for gifts, let us remind ourselves that there is another SOURCE, an infallible SOURCE from which we may receive them.
That SOURCE is JESUS.
When we allow HIM to be the ONE who supplies all we need, then our attainment of all we need is assured.
HIS unfailing WORD tells us that "the joy of the LORD is our strength," Nehemiah 8:10. When our joy is in HIM, it is not the mere, fleeting, whimsical feeling of euphoria that temporal things can supply but the abiding and abounding joy that is anchored to our eternal hope.
HIS unfailing WORD tells us that HIS "love never fails," I Corinthians 13:8. Though human love may fail us again and again, though human love may be self-centered and self-seeking, GOD'S love for us is holy and pure and selfless, and it can never end.
HIS unfailing WORD tells us that HE has given to us an "unspeakable gift," II Corinthians 9:15, and that gift will be ours through all the trials and challenges of life and it will be our abiding treasure for all of eternity. There is nothing of our temporal wealth that spends in Heaven, but the gift of eternal life through the sacrifice of JESUS on the cross is sufficient to supply not only our mansion in Heaven but our eternal provision there.
May we not look to any temporal source to lift our spirit for this precious holiday; rather, let us look to the ONE who can never fail to "supply all we need, according to HIS riches in glory," at CHRISTMAS and always.
When we allow HIM to be the ONE who supplies all we need, then our attainment of all we need is assured.
HIS unfailing WORD tells us that "the joy of the LORD is our strength," Nehemiah 8:10. When our joy is in HIM, it is not the mere, fleeting, whimsical feeling of euphoria that temporal things can supply but the abiding and abounding joy that is anchored to our eternal hope.
HIS unfailing WORD tells us that HIS "love never fails," I Corinthians 13:8. Though human love may fail us again and again, though human love may be self-centered and self-seeking, GOD'S love for us is holy and pure and selfless, and it can never end.
HIS unfailing WORD tells us that HE has given to us an "unspeakable gift," II Corinthians 9:15, and that gift will be ours through all the trials and challenges of life and it will be our abiding treasure for all of eternity. There is nothing of our temporal wealth that spends in Heaven, but the gift of eternal life through the sacrifice of JESUS on the cross is sufficient to supply not only our mansion in Heaven but our eternal provision there.
May we not look to any temporal source to lift our spirit for this precious holiday; rather, let us look to the ONE who can never fail to "supply all we need, according to HIS riches in glory," at CHRISTMAS and always.
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