I plan to keep the Spirit of Christmas in my heart until my last breath. What is the Spirit of Christmas? Well, if you ask Google, one answer is hope, joy and cheer, another is love, joy and peace. Me, I believe the Christmas Spirit is about love coming to Earth in the form of Jesus Christ the Messiah, who died so that I could live. That is the Christmas Spirit I intend to proclaim and exclaim until my last breath.
The love of my Savior Jesus is what keeps me moving forward when I am weary, keeps my heart and mouth in check when I become short-tempered, and keeps me obedient when my thoughts try to go astray of His Words. His love for me is so great, and it makes my return love for Him so strong that it keeps me in obedience to His will. He allows me to love more purely than I was ever able to love without Him.
It is amazing how Jesus multiplies His love into us so that we can love, through His grace, the way He did while on Earth. We can love those we find unlovely. Those whom the Rescue Mission finds under the boardwalk drunk, drugged and delirious. Those who outright hate us. Those who even are indifferent to any love, be it His love or our love. It is such an amazing love that we can forgive others in the love that He provides.
The Spirit of Christmas is the love of the God of Creation for His creation. I think now that there is not any reason I cannot keep Jesus’ love in my heart, and then I hear of some horrible tragedy against an innocent child and I find that love wanting. My love for the child calls forth prayer for restoration and grace and forgiveness, but for the evildoer I have more trouble bursting forth in love. That is when Jesus must give me that love to extend prayers on the behalf of someone so debased that they would harm a child. A heart that hardened needs much prayer, and so Jesus shows me I must pray for that very lost soul as well – with His love.
If we consider it, even the greatest preachers and prophets of all time were sinners in need of forgiveness. We are all on the same playing field when it comes to sin: “No one is righteous, not even one.” We all need the saving power of Jesus’ blood that was shed on the cross for our salvation. The joy of accepting the forgiveness and declaring Jesus as our Lord and Savior brings the love of Jesus into our souls.
It seems to me that the longer I walk with Jesus, and the more I study His Words and hear His voice in those words, the more His love increases in me. Or, at least my understanding of the vastness of His love has increased. As I have grasped the immenseness of that love, which covers horrid sins untold, I understand how necessary it is for me to share that same love, grace and forgiveness with my every breath. I am compelled to walk and live that love of my God because there is no other way for me. I am absolutely smitten by His love.
I must stay in constant contact with my source of love – Jesus – and continue to be fed by that love in order to share my portion with others. My cup overflows when the source of love is my Savior. The Apostle Paul wrote, “Be imitators of God, therefore, as beloved children, and walk in love, just as Christ loved us and gave Himself up for us as a fragrant sacrificial offering to God.”
Ah, to be a fragrant sacrificial offering to God. Wouldn’t Jesus be pleased if I were able to be an imitator of God just as He asks of me? And so many times the Lord has commanded me to “Be holy as I am holy.”
That is not an easy task in this fallen world, and neither was it easy in Moses’ day, when God gave him this command to tell His people. Still, God did not issue this command lightly, He seeks a people who want to honor and adore Him, to follow His pure and righteous ways. I cannot in my own strength, for sure, it is only by clinging to Jesus, learning from Jesus, listening to the Ancient Words that tell me of obedience, and then I feebly take my baby steps in this direction each and every day. If I fall, just like a little child, I must stand up again and move forward.
