1st of all, there ought to be a
time of personal cleansing. Matthew 5:8 is a part of the Sermon on the Mount,
and in it Jesus says “Blessed are the pure in heart for they will see God”.
Blessed in the original Greek also means “happy”. I think that God is speaking to us saying;
“If you want to truly see me this Christmas, if you want a “happy heart” you
must have a pure heart; a cleansed heart.
I don’t know about you, but I must admit there are days when my heart is
not happy…In fact, there are even times when my heart feels more polluted than
pure. I think that the Psalmist David
felt this way as well and he cried out; “Create in me a clean heart O God!” In
the Book of Ezekiel 36:26 God says “I will give you a new heart and put a new
spirit within you;” The good news is that – like David – a personal cleansing
begins in the heart, and all we must do is ask ”Create in me a clean heart O
God, and renew a right spirit within me.” It is God’s desire to decorate our
lives with his blessings and make our lives beautiful; revealing the splendor,
the glory, the majesty and the mystery of Christmas. God will do it if we ask, and we are on our
way to preparing for Christmas in the proper way.
2nd. - Preparation calls for a
rearranging of priorities. Just as we rearrange our homes to make room for the
tree and other aspects of Christmas, God wants us to rearrange our lives to
make room for His Son, and the blessed Christmas story. Sometimes we become
somewhat immune or numb to the story of Christmas. We have heard it so many
times, we have seen it so many times, it has lost it’s meaning. But, when we
put Christ at the center of Christmas and at the center of our priorities,
God’s blessings begin to rapidly flow into our lives and overflow into the lives
of those around us! We may even feel like singing - “It’s beginning to look a
lot like Christmas.”
We are not prepared for Christmas until our
hearts are cleansed and the decorations are up; our priorities are in place;
and #3 – there is the giving and receiving of gifts.
The Bible says “Yet to all who received
him, to those who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of
God.” (John 1:12) The Greek meaning of
the word “receive” means to “welcome or accept”. So John, speaking of receiving
Christ into our lives, also means we are to accept him and welcome him! Not
just in part, but completely. Not just at Christmas time, but all the time. God
has given us an incredible gift, and by accepting, receiving, and welcoming
that gift into our lives, we literally become a part of God’s family. “I have come that they may have life, and
have it to the full” said Jesus. (John 10:10) There is a fullness of life that
can hardly be explained that comes from receiving God’s gift of His Son.
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