Christmas

Despite the fact that the baby Jesus came to earth to seek and save those who are lost, He regularly gets Himself lost at our house. We are always on the hunt for the wayward Savior.  Sometimes He slips down between the couch cushions.  On occasion He has been found under furniture.  One year He disappeared for almost the whole Christmas season.  He has been vacuumed up twice, and shockingly, ran over by the Christmas train more than once.  (He is just too tempting of a victim, being bound in swaddling clothes!)

I suppose it is not too surprising that Jesus can get lost in the hustle and bustle of the Christmas season.  Even those of us who have chosen to follow Him can find ourselves putting Him aside, losing Him in the cracks of our busy lives and letting our relationship with our Savior gather dust on a shelf.  I think the question we need to ask ourselves this Christmas is, “Where is Jesus?”  Do I have Him front and center in my life?  Have I ever invited Him into my life at all?  This is the perfect time of year to seek Him, to accept the gift of salvation that He came into the world to give.

Just like our toy baby Jesus, who always pops back up, Jesus has a way of continuing to show up in our lives and give us chance after chance to receive Him and accept the forgiveness and love He offers.  Knowing that some day our chances will come to an end, makes today a great day to find Jesus!

“For the Son of Man, (Jesus) came to seek and to save those who are lost.”  Luke 19:10

“What shall I do, then, with Jesus who is called Christ?”  Matthew 27:22

“For God so loved the world, that He gave His one and only Son, that whoever believes in Him shall not perish, but have eternal life.”  John 3:16

Can you believe we are already on the last week of Advent?  Christmas is just a few days away.  It is a good time to talk about peace, the concept our study of Advent concludes with.  I know with the last of the shopping and cooking and wrapping still to be done in the next two days, peace could possibly be the furthest thing from our minds.  However, I hope you will join me for a couple minutes to rest in some Christmas peace.

Similarly to the way I had thought about joy, I have usually thought of peace as momentary at best.  A few stolen minutes of quiet before the next child ran in with an emergency, or a moment to watch a beautiful sunset.  I had always thought of peace in terms of how I was feeling.  I recently learned that peace with God means something different though.

When we are at peace with God, it doesn’t mean just a warm, fuzzy feeling.  The peace Jesus came to give is far greater than that.  Before He came, the entire human race was essentially at war with God.  We didn’t have the ability to make ourselves good enough to have true relationship with Him.  When Jesus came, He provided a way for that war to end and gave us peace, if we want to accept His gift of salvation.

So the peace we get to enjoy is actually a state of being, as when a war ends and a country gets to enjoy a time of peace.  I love that idea because it does not hinge on how I am currently feeling.  Whether I feel peaceful or not, I can have peace with my Father God!  The more I lean into that idea, the more often I will feel peaceful as well.

As we move through the next week of this Christmas season, I hope the words Jesus spoke to us in John 14:27 will encourage us, “Peace I leave with you; my peace I give you.  I do not give to you as the world gives.  Do not let your hearts be troubled and do not be afraid.”

Merry Christmas, and thank you for joining me on this journey through Advent!

I love Christmas music, so for each of these Advent posts I am including a song.  Click here to listen!

When I think of joy, I realize I think of something fleeting and momentary.  The joy on a child’s face as they open a Christmas present.  The spontaneous feeling I get when one of my children gives me a hug and tells me they love me.  I don’t usually think of joy as something I can have on an ongoing, normal, everyday basis.

But that is what Jesus came to give us.  Not a once-a-year Christmas time joy when we remember a baby in a manger, but a full-fledged, day to day, in the trenches kind of joy.  The kind that overcomes every circumstance a fallen world can throw at it.  The kind that is a fountain bubbling up inside of us to quench our deepest thirsts and longings.

I need this kind of joy and I suspect you do too.  There are too many times that I don’t allow myself to claim this gift of joy and instead I slog through my day in a depressed mood.  How much better it would be to drink deeply from this fountain of joy God has given us through Christ!  What would it be like to not worry about anything, bringing all those things immediately to our loving Father instead?  Philippians 4:4-7 says, “Always be joyful, then, in the Lord; I repeat, be joyful.  Let your good sense be obvious to everybody.  The Lord is near.  Never worry about anything; but tell God all your desires of every kind in prayer and petition filled with gratitude, and the peace of God which is beyond our understanding, will guard your hearts and your thoughts in Christ Jesus.”  My hope is that as we go through our busy days, we will remember this verse and allow Jesus to fill us with amazing joy!

We began our Advent journey together with hope, which led us to love, which has now led us to joy and I love how the above verse ends with the peace of God, which is how we will conclude our journey next week.  Until then, may you be filled with joy!

Psalm 71:23 “My lips will shout for joy when I sing praise to you–I, whom you have redeemed.”

I love Christmas music, so for each of these Advent posts I am going to be including a song.  Click here to listen!