In our culture, at Christmas we exchange gifts, a wonderful expression of love. Yet, as Christians we really ought to jettison out of our communities any hint of a high jacked holiday. How might we go about this, though? Culture is a powerful presence and it takes some work to move it off center stage and onto something nice but not essential.

For four weeks followers of Jesus have journeyed through Advent. We’ve prayed and searched and hoped and looked forward to a time and place where the kingdom of God in all its glory will be the natural order of things. Celebrating Jesus’ birth into history helps us realize that God is in the midst but that there are miles to go before we sleep.

We think it unselfish to give gifts; and it is. Yet, perhaps we ought to recognize that Christmas isn’t about us and our unselfishness. Christmas is about the Self-giving, Self-sacrificing love of God for his creation, moving Him into the very fiber of what He created. Christmas is about what God gave to the world in the life of the Baby whose birth we choose to celebrate on December 25.

Look at what God has gifted us with in the life of this baby boy. Paul wrote, “But by His doing you are in Christ Jesus, who became to us wisdom from God, and righteousness and sanctification, and redemption” (I Cor. 1:30). Now these are some real gifts. The prophet, Isaiah, tells us this child is a “Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Eternal Father, Prince of Peace” (Is. 9:6). This drives home the point that God is the Giver of everything we most need.

May God help us to receive what He has given and to live and move and have our being in the depths of His amazing grace.

King David wanted to build God a house of worship. It made sense in a way. David knew that while He was living in a house of cedar that the ark of God was dwelling “within tent curtains” (see. 2 Samuel 7:2). This didn’t seem right to David, and he wanted to correct it.

It was a noble idea but it wasn’t God’s will for David. God wanted to do not a physical thing in David’s life but a deeply and profound spiritual thing. He would allow a temple to be built but that job would fall to David’s son, Solomon.

Then a tremendous role reversal takes place. God says to David, “The Lord also declares to you that the Lord will make a house for you”(2 Sam. 7:11). David is to be gifted with a house built by God. Of this house God says, “Your house and your kingdom shall endure before Me forever; Your throne shall be established forever” (2 Sam. 7:16).

God is doing something in the world that is not rooted and grounded in the things of the world. God is at work in the hearts and lives of people, a people who actually become His “Chosen Race,” His “royal Priesthood,” His “holy Nation,’ and “a people for God’s own possession” (I Pet. 2:9). The house that God builds is “a spiritual house” comprised of people who have come to Christ, “ a living stone which has been rejected by men, but is choice and precious in the sight of God” (I Pet. 2:4-5).

This house is comprised of what the Bible calls, “living stones,” ordinary people who by an extraordinary and amazing Grace have received mercy so as to come alive in the very life of God. The good news in this is that you and I are invited to be that people.

Merry Christmas!

Did you know God is looking for a people in whom He can rejoice? In Isaiah 65:19 God says, “I will also rejoice in Jerusalem and be glad in My people.” He said this just after having challenged these very people, “Be glad and rejoice forever in what I create; for behold, I create Jerusalem for rejoicing” (vs. 18).

Our God is a rejoicing God. He calls His people to rejoice in what He creates, with the promise that He will rejoice in those people. Who are these people? They are the very people to whom earlier He had said, “Comfort, O comfort My people…Here is your God” (Is. 40:1, 9).

Our God is an up-close-and-personal-God. He is not aloof and disinterested. When we are taken through the hard times of life He does not forsake us; He draws near. Even when we can’t see Him, He is present, “like a shepherd” (Is. 40:11). When we are broken and hurt, fractured and wounded “in His arms He will gather His lambs and carry them in His bosom” (Is. 40:11).

God is so much with us that we can join the prayer of old and pray, “O Lord, You are our Father; we are the clay, and You are our potter; and all of us are the work of Your hand” (Is. 65:8). God is with us in the everyday stuff of life--the good, the bad, and the ugly; and He is with us in grace to shape and form our lives in awesome ways we could never dream or imagine.

In the Advent season of waiting, longing, looking forward, and hoping, God Is With Us. Even though we walk through the valley of the shadow of death, He is with us (see. Psalm 23:4). In the presence of powers that would seek our demise God invites us to a divine banquet. He is our shepherd anointing us with the oil of His Spirit so much so that our “cup overflows” (Ps. 23:5).

How do you perceive God? Is He hard and cruel and unbending? Some people think so. Yet, the Bible doesn’t present this picture of God. The Bible presents Him as one who is calling for wholeness and health and life and blessing. He works so as to remove all barriers to His “good and acceptable and perfect will” (see Rom. 12:2). He lives in His world in truthfulness and justice, and at the heart of all He does is redemption, love, forgiveness, and salvation from anything that would destroy His “good and acceptable and perfect will” from being realized in the lives of people.

We live in a world where “the grass withers, the flower fades.” It is a transient world and everything moves toward the day of its death. That seems to be a fatalistic way of seeing, but it really isn’t. In this transient and temporary world the eternal God of the universe has come. He hasn’t written off the world. Rather, He is here “with might” (see Isaiah 40: 8-10). He is present as a Shepherd taking care of His flock. God is not hard, cruel, and unbending. When He is present the word goes out, “Comfort, O comfort My people” (Is. 40:1).

God is present. This is the good news. He is here not to write off but to include. Are you broken at some point in your life? Your brokenness cannot deter God. Are you bruised by some past action? Your past cannot deter God. Do you feel helpless? Your helplessness cannot deter God.

Listen for the voice of God, and hear His Word. If you do you will discover “the glory of the Lord” (Is. 40:5). Could it be that God is wanting to say to you that your “warfare has ended” (Is. 40:2)? Is there something in your life God wants to clean out and jettison away so that His “good and acceptable and perfect will” might be done (Rom. 12:2)? Each of our has our own story. God is aware of it, and is present to speak His grace into our lives.