By now, Thanksgiving is over and Christmas is just around the corner. Schedules will be getting busier and “to-do” lists will be getting longer. If we aren’t careful then we might spend the entirety of the holidays in a blur of coming and going without ever experiencing any deeper meaning or truth.
We celebrate the holidays for very specific reasons; Thanksgiving is to be a time of remembrance and thankfulness for all that God has blessed us with and Christmas is the Advent, the coming of the Christ child who would save the world from Sin and death. These are wonderful, important truths and they are the very foundations of our Christian faith.
Although Thanksgiving is a a few days past we need to renew our efforts to be thankful, and to remember all that God has done for us. It is a helpful thing to take a few, quiet minutes and make a list of the things that you are thankful for. It helps us to remember and to see in black and white just how amazing our God is and how He provides for us. Count your blessings and see what God has done!
Likewise with the Christmas holiday to come, unless we take the time to focus on what “God with us” really means, we are apt to miss it. Because we claim to have Christ in our hearts, the coming of the Christ child and the season of Advent should be a very special and sacred time to us. We give gifts during this time of year because God first gave the ultimate gift to us; His son and His life for ours.
Jesus, God’s son, came to earth as a tiny baby. Born in a stable, laid in an manger, the very creator of the universe began life as a human being so that he could die an agonizing death on a cross in our place. That’s amazing, isn’t it? Isn’t that worth celebrating and worth remembering? Isn’t it worth sharing with someone else? It absolutely is!
So, as we go through this holiday season, let’s work hard to remember why we celebrate. We have the best reason in the entire world to be thankful and to rejoice. We shouldn’t hide it or be ashamed of it and we must certainly never forget it. Not ever.