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Are We Ready for Christmas?
Christmas is just two days away. Are we ready?
I believe I am. The Christmas tree has been up for 4 weeks, the
house is nicely decorated. The snowman scene has been smiling at us
for so long now that it's becoming covered with dust, and the
buffalo snow around our little ceramic Christmas town that was set
out when there was still green grass visible has gone from looking
displaced to looking like we just brought it in from outside. The
gifts have been purchased and wrapped, and Christmas dinner has been
planned, the ingredients bought, and the guest list has been
carefully distributed.
Yes, I believe I'm ready for Christmas.
Or so I thought until I read the following text: "To the pure [in
heart and conscience] all things are pure . . ." (Titus 1:15a)
"But," you say, "That text has NOTHING to do with Christmas!"
Yes, that's what I said, too. In fact, I had been praying about a
particularly sticky situation at work when God gave me this text,
and had I stopped with just this piece of verse 15, I would have
been convinced that God was telling me that I was in the right,
while the other person was in the wrong. In fact, I was beginning to
feel rather pleased with myself for having handled this situation
with this VERY WRONG person in the correct manner!
But before I could close my Bible, God spoke to me: "Read the rest
of the chapter!"
So my eyes strayed off of this nice, encouraging verse and drifted
down the page: "but to the defiled and corrupt and unbelieving
nothing is pure; their very minds and consciences are defiled and
polluted. They profess to know God [to recognize, perceive, and be
acquainted with Him], but deny and disown and renounce Him by what
they do; they are detestable and loathsome, unbelieving and
disobedient and disloyal and rebellious, and [they are] unfit and
worthless for good work (deed or enterprise) of any kind." (Titus
1:15-16 AMP)
In my pious manner, I smiled. Surely God was telling me about the
other person at work, and He wasn't telling me anything I didn't
already know!
Yes, sorry to admit it, but this was exactly the way my mind was
running, and when God spoke to me and said, "THIS is the Christmas
message you've been praying about!", I didn't believe Him! After
all, there was NOTHING about Christmas in this text! God must be
joking!
Now God DOES have a sense of humour, but a strong feeling of rebuke
came over me. God wasn't joking. Not at all. And I immediately
repented of having thought such a thing.
But what WAS He trying to tell me?
I reread the verses then, more carefully this time, and that's when
the full meaning flowed. The text truly was speaking about whether
or not we are prepared for Christmas. No, it wasn't speaking about
the number of presents under the tree or the condition of the
Christmas dinner preparations. It was speaking about the condition
of our hearts!
For years I've been bothered by the commercialism that surrounds
Christmas, especially here in North America. And I have been very
careful to try and "decommercialize" Christmas in my home. Or at
least, that's been my attempt. But have I been being careful to "decommercialize"
my heart? Have I allowed myself to become pious? To become
judgmental about how the rest of the world celebrated the birth of
the Christ child? Was my heart where it should be to celebrate the
greatest, most unselfish birth in history? Was my heart ready to
remember how Jesus left His comfortable home in heaven with His
father to be born to a peasant woman in a stable, so that He could
provide MY salvation? Was my heart ready to embrace that precious
gift?
Whoa! That was food for thought! You see, God was telling me that
the way to be ready for the celebration of the birth of His precious
Son was to be pure, because only when my heart is pure can the
celebration of Christmas reach its maximum potential! "To the pure
[in heart and conscience] all things are pure . . ." (Titus 1:15a)
But as long as I'm feeling prideful and judgmental, I come much
closer to fitting the second half of the text: ". . . but to the
defiled and corrupt and unbelieving nothing is pure; their very
minds and consciences are defiled and polluted." (Titus 1:15b)
Friends, I repeat my initial question: Are we ready for Christmas?
Are our hearts pure, undefiled, unpolluted? Are our hearts filled
with unselfish, Godly love? If so, it will be a glorious Christmas,
full of blessing to each of us and everyone around us. But if it is
not, then we are no better off than the poor folks described in
Titus 1:16. We "deny and disown and renounce Him" (Titus 1:16a) by
what we do. We truly are: "detestable and loathsome, unbelieving
and disobedient and disloyal and rebellious, and unfit and
worthless for good work (deed or enterprise) of any kind." (Titus
1:15-16 AMP)
Christmas isn't here yet, folks. There is still time to purify our
hearts for this glorious celebration. I don't know about you, but
I'm going to spend some time doing just that!
Lyn Chaffart |
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