Christmas
LessonKeeping Christ First
This week let’s think about Christmas and remember the importance of keeping Christ first.
I don’t have a lot of thought-provoking questions this week, as you’ll see shortly, but I think the questions below are important; as we work our way through December and the "holiday" season.
Consider the following verses, Luke 1:26-38 and Luke 2:1-20 – both very familiar ones I’m sure – and answer the following questions:
- How was the very first Christmas, the night of Jesus’ birth, celebrated?
- What was the political and religious climate of the day when Christ was born, and what impact did Jesus birth have on the powers-that-be during this time period?
- How was Christmas celebrated when you were young and why?
- What’s different about how we celebrate Christmas today and why?
- Why should the world celebrate Christ’s birth?
- Why does it not want to?
- What does how we celebrate Christ’s birth tell us about how we live our day-to-day lives?
In looking back over my own life and how my family and I celebrated Christmas, even twenty years ago, I can see how large changes have taken place since then. Some changes were precipitated by the growth of our children to adulthood and going off to start their own families, and some changes have slipped into my life because of the world in which I live and the way in which I live in it.
How about you and your family? Have you quietly allowed compromise, apathy, and the world around you to dampen your excitement about the good news of Christ’s birth? Have you gotten so caught up in the "holiday" that you have lost the real reason we celebrate Christmas? And finally, if this can happen to us as believing Christians, then think how much more so the lost world around us will focus on the worldly things and not eternal things during this time of year.
Don’t allow the season to take your joy, or cause you to compromise your walk with Christ. Reflect this week on His birth and the great gift that God gave the world that evening some two thousand years ago – the gift of a child, His only Son, and an eternal hope that there is salvation through Jesus. This is the real gift that we should focus on.
May you be richly blessed this week as we celebrate Christ’s birth and God’s great gift to mankind.
In Christ,
Wes
[2005]