Christmas: A Time for Giving LUKE 2:1-20

Christmas is one of the happiest holidays because during this season, people are more generous than at any other time of the year. The practice of giving is not a recent innovation–it began on the first Christmas when Jesus was born. Everyone in the story had something to give.

• When Mary submitted to God’s plan, she gave her body to be the first home of the incarnated Savior (Luke 1:30-38).
• When She also surrendered her good reputation in order to fulfill the Lord’s calling for her life.
• When Joseph offered his love and protection to Mary and the child who was not his own (Matt. 1:18-25).
• When An angel gave an announcement of the Messiah’s birth to some lowly shepherds who were watching their flocks at night.
• When A heavenly host of angels offered praise and glory to God.
• When The shepherds shared the first personal testimony about the Messiah.
• When The wise men relinquished the comfort of home to seek the newborn King and give Him gifts worthy of royalty (Matt. 2:1-11).

At first glance, these gifts may seem to pertain only to the first Christmas, but they each have application for us today. Believers are called to give of themselves to the Lord and to one another in similar ways.

Look at this list again. What gifts could you give to Christ today? Maybe you need to submit to His will in a difficult area or endure misunderstanding in order to obey Him. And how about others? Who needs your protection, love, or perhaps the good news of salvation in Christ?

On Whose Side Are You?

And the glory of the Lord shall be revealed, and all flesh shall see it together.

Isaiah 40:5

We anticipate the happy day when every knee will bow before Christ; when the gods of the heathen shall be cast to the moles and the bats; when empty religion will be exploded, and the crescent of Mohammed will topple, never again to cast its harmful rays upon the nations; when kings shall worship before the Prince of Peace, and all nations shall call the Redeemer blessed. Some despair of this. They look on the world as a ship breaking up and going to pieces, never to float again. We know that the world and all that is in it will one day be burned up, and afterwards we look for new heavens and for a new earth; but we cannot read our Bibles without the conviction that—

Jesus shall reign where’er the sun
Doth his successive journeys run.

We are not discouraged by the length of His delays; we are not disheartened by the long period that He assigns to the church in which to struggle with little success and much defeat. We believe that God will never tolerate this world, which has once seen Christ’s blood shed upon it, remaining as the devil’s stronghold. Christ came here to deliver this world from the detested sway of the powers of darkness. What a shout that will be when men and angels unite to cry “Hallelujah! For the Lord our God Almighty reigns”.¹

What a satisfaction it will be in that day to have had a part in the fight, to have helped to break the arrows of the bow, and to have shared in winning the victory for our Lord! Happy are those who entrust themselves to this conquering Lord, and who fight side by side with Him doing their part in His name and by His strength! How unhappy are those on the side of evil! It is a losing side, and it is a matter in which to lose is to lose and to be lost forever. On whose side are you?

¹Revelation 19:6