TONIGHT: Find the HEART of Christmas!
TONIGHT: Find the HEART of CHRISTMAS!
Christmas Eve Worship – 5pm
In person @ Crosspoint Church, 3800 Shell Road, Georgetown, TX
Online: Live Stream
So Joseph also went up from the town of Nazareth in Galilee to Judea, to Bethlehem the town of David, because he belonged to the house and line of David. He went there to register with Mary, who was pledged to be married to him and was expecting a child. —Luke 2:4-5
“This is sooo not what we need right now!” Mary and Joseph must have thought when they found out they had to report in Bethlehem for that Roman census. Mary should have been at home nesting, preparing the nursery, cleaning the cupboards, or weirdly reorganizing the hut for the twelfth time. If you’re a parent, you know what I mean. But instead of those final preparations, Mary had to endure a 90-mile journey on foot from Nazareth to Bethlehem.
In pregnancy, you know the time is drawing near, but you never know exactly when the baby is coming. There are contractions. There may be false starts. But one moment you are rearranging the kitchen, and the next, labor has begun. There’s no going back. Your body and mind completely focus on the process of labor. This new life is entering the world, and your life will never be exactly the same.
In these moments, there is joy and there is uncertainty. There is contentment and there is expectation. There is the planned and the unexpected. There is completion and there is the journey ahead. Here on Christmas Eve, we find all the same things.
As we finish our Christmas preparations, let’s also pause to rest a few minutes in the expectant now. The celebration will erupt. The emotions will swirl. The memories will be created. Our lives will add another new day, a special day not exactly like any other, and in that sense, our lives will never be the same. Like Mary, let’s ponder and treasure these moments in our hearts as we reflect on this threshold of birth and life, expectation and celebration, and God turned human in our hearts and lives.
Apply: What is heavy on your heart in the anticipation of Christmas? What is joyful in your expectant spirit?
(Reprinted from 12/24/2020 with permission from Outreach.com “Advent Reading Plan”)
The Perfect Gift Causes Celebration!
Devotions this week based on Sunday’s Message: LOVE is the Heart of Christmas! (LISTEN HERE)
So you just have a today and tomorrow to find the perfect gift…hopefully your shopping is done by now!
Finding the perfect gift for the people in your life is certainly challenging. Hopefully our devotions have given you some practical thoughts based on God’s Perfect Gift of love to you. A perfect gift is personal, priceless (given from a heart of love), timeless, and practical.
But outside of God’s love for you, it’s hard to find a gift that matches all of these…which is why God’s love is such the perfect gift.
But there’s one more attribute of God’s Perfect Gift…it causes celebration!
You can probably recall a Christmas git you received (or watched another person receive) that as soon as they saw what was inside they dropped the package half opened and threw their hands up in the air, yelling “YES!!! It’s what I ALWAYS wanted!” After the yell there may be a spontaneous “happy dance” around the family room, shouting and yelling joyful glee. Mom and Dad or whoever gave the gift may get a huge hug and a large “THANK YOU!” as part of the celebration for receiving THE perfect gift!
The Gospel of Luke records the shepherd’s celebration in Luke 2:20:
The shepherds returned, glorifying and praising God for all the things they had heard and seen, which were just as they had been told.
As Luke “carefully investigated” the life and work of Jesus, I wonder if had the chance to interview one of the shepherds? If he did, I wonder if the excitement returned as the shepherd recounted the appearance of the angels, the visitation to the manger in Bethlehem and the return through Bethlehem which found them telling anyone who would listen!
Perhaps it was a spontaneous “happy dance”! YES! God did give us what he has promised us for a long time! YES! God gave me exactly what I needed…a Savior. If I could run and give God a hug, I would…YES! What a perfect gift!
Christmas Day is a special day for us as Christians. While we know what’s “wrapped in swaddling clothes and lying in manger” is Jesus, the impact causes celebration every time we peer into the manger and see Jesus, our Savior born for YOU and me!
YES! What a perfect gift!
Don’t let your meal prep, your family gatherings, your travel, your unwrapping of presents or anything else get in the way of celebrating the perfect gift God has given to you. Make it a point to go to your local church Saturday and Sunday. Take your friends and family with you!
If nothing else as you are unwrapping gifts, just spontaneously stand up and yell, “YES!” Do a happy dance! Give someone a hug! And when you have everyone’s attention, simply say, “God gave me and us the perfect gift, the gift I’ve always wanted and needed…Jesus.”
Jesus is THE perfect gift!
Merry Christmas!
Prayer: Lord thank you for giving all of us THE perfect gift at Christmas…your son, Jesus, our Savior. AMEN.
Do you like practical gifts?
Devotions this week based on Sunday’s Message: LOVE is the Heart of Christmas! (LISTEN HERE)
3 days until Christmas and Happy Birthday to my mom!
Still on the quest for the perfect gift?
Time is running short…but don’t give up!
The insight today about the perfect gift might be a little controversial. Some really like sentimental gifts and they don’t have to have really any use other than they sit on a shelf and remind the person of the one who gave the gift.
However, some people like practical gifts, gifts that have some sort of use. (Note: I am not encouraging husbands to give their wives a kitchen appliance…however, wives, if you get your husband a tool for their shop…that’s ok.)
While a perfect gift doesn’t have to be practical, perhaps the person to whom you are giving a gift would enjoy a gift that has a very practical use to it.
The PERFECT gift of God’s love is very practical. In fact, God didn’t just give us his love in the manger of Bethlehem to keep to ourselves. He desires that once we receive his love we put it into practice and share it.
The Apostle John understood God’s love and the impact of putting that love into practice.
1 John 4:7-12 Dear friends, let us love one another, for love comes from God. Everyone who loves has been born of God and knows God. 8 Whoever does not love does not know God, because God is love. 9 This is how God showed his love among us: He sent his one and only Son into the world that we might live through him. 10 This is love: not that we loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son as an atoning sacrifice for our sins. 11 Dear friends, since God so loved us, we also ought to love one another. 12 No one has ever seen God; but if we love one another, God lives in us and his love is made complete in us.
The practical impact of God giving us his love in the person and work of Jesus Christ is a) “that we might live through him.” God’s love is not just an emotional feeling (while it does create that feeling) but it has a use for us personally: to secure eternal life with the Father in heaven. As Jesus grew up, lived a perfect life and offered his life on the cross, he had the intended result that his life would bring us eternal life…and it does. Secondly, the impact of God giving us his love in the person and work of Jesus Christ is that b) we love others, making God visible to others. God’s love is to be shared with the people around us. While his love is a personal blessing, it is a gift that is to be regifted…over and over again. The impact of us showing the love of God to others? Others see and experience the love of God through us. In fact, God’s love is not complete in us until we love others. In essence God is reminding us that if we don’t see the practical importance and real impact of his love, we have lost the significance of his gift of love.
Makes sense, right? If you receive something for Christmas that you a) don’t know what it is and b) don’t know how to use it, you will never receive the blessing of that gift. On the other hand when you know what it is AND use it, you experience the complete blessing of that gift.
So it is with God’s love. It is the perfect gift. It is practical…giving eternal life to you and through you giving God’s love to others.
Apply: Do you like practical gifts? What makes God’s love so practical for you?
Prayer: Lord God, thank you for giving to us a gift that brings impact to our lives and eternity and through us to the lives of others. AMEN.
How long should a gift last?
Devotions this week based on Sunday’s Message: LOVE is the Heart of Christmas! (LISTEN HERE)
So…have you found the perfect gift?
5 days until Christmas…no pressure!
It’s hard, right? To find the perfect gift?
Yet we are given some practical insights as we reflect on God’s Perfect Gift of love to us! A perfect gift starts in the heart and the desire to express your love to a person in your life. A perfect gift isn’t measured by how much it cost in monetary expense, it is measured by the effort you as an individual put into the gift to bless the other person.
Is there more?
Yep.
Energizer professes to have a battery that makes toys go and go and go and go and go. In fact a person who seems to have endless energy is sometimes called an “Energizer Bunny.” It would be nice if all the gifts we receive had a lifetime of value and use. But the reality is, some gifts will break on Christmas day. Some gifts will wear out after a few uses. Some gifts will be forgotten and sold at the next garage sale. It’s hard to find a gift that keeps on giving…in a good way!
Yet, we don’t want to give a gift, or receive a gift that has a short shelf-life. A perfect gift continues to add value to the recipient. It has longevity.
Which makes God’s love the perfect gift.
Even before Jesus was born, individuals recognized the value of God’s love is that it never quit, never gave up and never ran out. The Psalmist said in Psalm 100:5, “For the Lord is good and his love endures forever; his faithfulness continues through all generations.”
His love endures forever…longer than the Energizer Bunny!
This truth is an amazing blessing to us of the gift of God’s love. Why? Because we need God’s love on an ongoing basis. There isn’t a day we don’t need his love. We need his forgiveness. We need his presence. We need his power. We need all he is to fill us and our days…every day.
Imagine if God’s love had a limit. What if his love would fail and break down? What if his love gave up on us?
We’d be doomed to an eternity apart from him.
Which is why God’s love in Christ is so perfect. It never fails. Never gives up. Never ends.
When the angel announced to Mary she was to be the mother of Jesus, here’s a part of what the angel said, “He will be great and will be called the Son of the Most High. The Lord God will give him the throne of his father David, and he will reign over the house of Jacob forever; his kingdom will never end” (Luke 1:32-33).
His kingdom will never end. His rule will never end. His love will never end.
God’s love IS the perfect gift!
Apply: What changes for you if God’s love ran out? What impact does it make knowing his love for you will never run out?
Prayer: Lord thank you for your love and mercy that are new every morning and never run out! AMEN!
How much should you spend on a gift?
Devotions this week based on Sunday’s Message: LOVE is the Heart of Christmas! (LISTEN HERE)
What makes a great gift?
Now we are down to 5 days before Christmas. Do you feel the pressure still to get that “perfect gift”?
On our quest for the perfect gift, how appropriate to reflect on THE perfect gift that God gave us in his Son Jesus Christ. Ironically, when we look at God’s gift to us in Jesus…it practically gives insights on giving other types of gifts to people in our lives as well!
Sometimes we feel the “perfect gift” is one that costs a lot. Yet, sometimes the gifts that we remember and treasure the most are ones that someone sacrificed their personal time, energy and effort to create, make, or bring to us. A hand drawn card from a grandchild stays on the refrigerator for years. A blanket that grandma quilted stays on your bed for years and then is stored away in a cedar chest. A surprise visit by a family member or relative creates a life-long memory.
Sure some of these things cost money, but it was the personal investment in you that makes the gift so perfect, memorable and long-lasting.
God could have just taken a portion of the wealth of the world and “paid off” Satan for the sins of the world. He could have made a financial transaction to compensate for the debt of sin. But he didn’t.
1 Peter 1:18-19 For you know that it was not with perishable things such as silver or gold that you were redeemed from the empty way of life handed down to you from your forefathers, but with the precious blood of Christ, a lamb without blemish or defect.
What makes God’s gift to us so perfect is he completely invested himself in the gift of forgiveness. He spent his own sweat, blood and life to give us the gift of forgiveness and assurance of life with him forever.
His gift of love was a true sacrifice of himself
John 15:13 Greater love has no one than this: to lay down one’s life for one’s friends.
Jesus was “all in” to give his gift of love for us. In this way his gift was priceless because no amount of money would ever claim the same impact and effect in our lives.
What’s difficult is to receive this gift. On the one hand this gift of tremendous value is placed in our laps and we are told, “It’s for you. Believe it. Use it. Enjoy it.”
Yet we can sometimes think we have to earn or make ourselves worthy of the gift. Somehow our sinful nature resists the priceless gift of God’s love and desires to produce a level of effort, works, and sacrifice on our own side to merit God’s gift of love.
That like receiving a gift on Christmas and asking, “What can I do to pay you for this?” The gift giver of course would say, “Don’t be ridiculous. It’s a gift. You don’t have to pay anything for it!”
How much greater does God desire for us to give up trying to earn his favor and simply receive the gift of his love as just that…a gift. On the one hand, there is no payment we can give that would ever come close to compensating the value; on the other hand, God says, “Don’t be ridiculous. It’s a gift. I paid for it. You don’t have to. SImply enjoy it. It’s my gift to you.”
That’s priceless! Thank you, Jesus!
Apply: Why does God’s gift of love lose it’s impact when we try to earn it instead of simply receive it as it is, a gift?
Prayer: Lord God, thank you for your overwhelming willingness to give fully of yourself that we might enjoy fully a relationship with you. AMEN.