Christmas 2018 – Now a Memory!

​Whatever you experienced on the 25th of December this year, is now a memory. All the hustle and bustle, all the anticipation or apprehension, whatever the emotion before, during, or after – it has now gone into the archives of your past. What is important is whether Christmas was just a day for gifts and personal joy or whether the Christ of the Christmas shines brighter in your heart.

One of my favorite authors of spiritual insight is without a doubt Oswald Chambers. As I read the daily devotion today from his acclaimed "My Utmost for HIs Highest", it read:

Every now and again, not often, but sometimes, God brings us to a point of climax. That is the Great Divide in the life; from that point we either go towards a more and more dilatory and useless type of Christian life, or we become more and more ablaze for the glory of God — "My Utmost for His Highest." From My Utmost for His Highest Classic Edition, Oswald Chambers

Christmas is like the "great divide" for the year. We will either actively pursue the things of God, or we slide into a "useless type of Christian life". We either seek to please God and go after the lost, the hurting, the depraved, or we justify within ourselves a complacency that refuses to allow the Spirit of God in us to work. The glory of God that revealed itself in a baby, born to reign, yet choosing to suffer is not understood by those who seek only to gratify themselves. Yet, if perchance we make a decision to follow that Christ without reservation, we will embark upon a journey that not only will bring rewards in this life, but eternal rewards in the life to come.

Another devotion I read this morning had a quote from an esteemed civil rights leader, Howard Thurman:

When the song of the angels is stilled,
When the star in the sky is gone,
When the kings and the princes are home,
When the shepherds are back with their flocks,
The work of Christmas begins:
To find the lost,
To heal the broken,
To feed the hungry,
To release the prisoner,
To rebuild the nations,
To bring peace among people,
To make music in the heart.

Selah, Pause and think about that!

Maria