"Christmas Picture"

"And when they were come into the house, they saw the young child with Mary his mother, and fell down, and worshipped him: and when they had opened their treasures, they presented unto him gifts; gold, and frankincense and myrrh." Matthew 2:11

I quit going to the annual Christmas parade a couple of years ago because it's just too cold to be standing out there. Well, last night I braved the cold because my daughter wanted to take my granddaughter to her first parade, and of course, Nana couldn't miss it. This morning I was reflecting on the night, and Christmas in general, and began to think about the real meaning of Christmas---- CHRIST BIRTHDAY! The more I thought about it, the more I found myself making some comparisons between celebrating Christ and celebrating His birth. Let me explain.

We will stand in freezing weather to watch a Christmas parade, but we won't get out of our warm beds to go to our prayer closet in our warm houses to spend a few minutes with the Lord. We will fight the traffic jam afterwards just to get back home, but we won't get in our cars on Sunday morning and go to church. We take our child to the mall and stand in a line of screaming children for hours just to get a picture with Santa Claus, but we can't sit in church for more than thirty minutes without squirming and watching the clock. We will spend the money that we don't have, borrow the money or max out credit cards to buy Christmas presents that we don't need, but we won't give tithes and offerings. We will get up in the middle of the night to be the first in line at the store to buy that hard to find item, but we won't get up even a few minutes earlier than we have to in order to have time alone with the Lord. We go to great lengths to cover our houses with lights, but we hide the light of Christ within us.

All that I have talked about are the things that we associate with Christmas, but something is wrong with the picture. There is something wrong when we give more attention, time and money to the "trappings" of Christmas than we do to the One that Christmas is all about. There is something wrong when we celebrate His birth but we don't celebrate Him. I think we need to step back and individually make some comparisons of our own lives during this time to see where we are putting the emphasis... on Christ or on Christmas?

Have a great day. Are you celebrating Christ? Or events?