12/11/19 – Pastor Brian’s Blog –
When I directed Snow Camp at Word of Life, we would theme our weekends. We once had a “Wizard of Oz” weekend where we had the witch flying down from the rafters; we also recruited some short students that we used for the Munchkins. We had an Olympic weekend where we had our Olympic participants skiing down wooden stairs from the back of the theater-style auditorium, we had students dressed up as hockey players. They pretended to play hockey and then a huge fight broke out.
One weekend we had the Smurfs theme, and all the program people not only dressed up as a Smurf, they even painted themselves blue. We had the different characters like Papa Smurf, Grouchy Smurf and we even had Smurfette! We had talked with the kitchen about our theme so they used food coloring that weekend so that all our food was either blue or red. Have you ever eaten blue spaghetti? Although I thought it was a great idea; the food consumption for the campers that weekend was not so good. On the other hand, our Snack Shack sales did spike!!
Well, I have themed my blog this month to a Christmas Theme: “Christmas every day of the week.” With all the gifts that God has given us, Christmas does not need to be just one day a year; Christmas can be every day. Unlike any gift your friend or family can give you, this gift is far better, because this gift is receiving God Himself!
If you read last weeks blog you may remember that we had 1 gift we needed to open every day and 6 gifts we can open as needed. The one gift that needs to be opened every day, is the gift of being in God’s presence… And so, dear brothers and sisters, we can boldly enter heaven’s Most Holy Place because of the blood of Jesus. Hebrews 10:19.
Now let’s look at 6 more gifts that we can put under the Christmas tree to be opened any time we need them!
His Manhood – And I will be your Father, and you will be my sons and daughters, says the LORD Almighty. 2 Corinthians 6:18
You may be reading this blog remembering a dad that was way too busy for you, or a dad that was anything but loving and kind. Or maybe your family was not the kind of family situation that you want to raise a family in. Then open this gift, because God is willing and able to give you everything that your family did not.
His Gifts – God has given each of you a gift from his great variety of spiritual gifts. Use them well to serve one another. 1 Peter 4:10
Please understand this: when God tells you to do something, you do not have to fear because He will gift you to do it, and His great variety of gifts is much more than we will ever need.
His Rewards – Remember that the Lord will reward each one of us for the good we do, whether we are slaves or free. Ephesians 6:8
Rewards? Who doesn’t want this gift!? These rewards are not only given to the ones that have talents oozing out of them, or to the handful of super achievers or those with platform or public ministries; He rewards all of us that do good.
His Presence – Praise be to the Lord, to God our Savior, who daily bears our burdens. Psalm 68:19
Which one of us has not had a heavy burden to bear? Know that you no longer have to carry that burden, that failure, that rejection or that broken relationship. What better gift to open at the beginning of the day so that you can free up your day and just hand off that burden to God our Savior!
His Persistence – He came to that which was his own, but his own did not receive him. John 1:11
Jesus is not a quitter, people may quit on you, people may walk away from you, but Jesus loves you too much to give up on you. He stuck with us even when we did not want Him.
His Forgiveness – Then I acknowledged my sin to you and did not cover up my iniquity. I said, “I will confess my transgressions to the LORD”– and you forgave the guilt of my sin. Psalm 32:5
It is God’s gift of forgiveness that is the bridge from our sinful state back into His presence and restored fellowship with Him.
God’s perfect gifts. We saw seven gifts last week and now we have six more gifts this week to be opened. You may not need each of these gifts every day, but never forget that each of these gifts are available to be opened every day!!
As you get ready for this Christmas, remember, God’s gifts can be opened as often as you need them. They are available not only on December 25th, they are available every day of the year, every moment of the day. Enjoy!
