Happy Birthday, Jesus!

This season has brought some frustration for me this year. I want, so badly, to focus on Christ and yet I get so caught up in the busyness of "my Christmas to do list". My focus has been blurred. Quite frankly, I'm tired of the commercialism that is prevalent. I'm even tired of our yearly Christmas traditions. I tend to like traditions and my motives started out pure but they just seem to be "another thing that we have to do". It all seems to take away from the real reason we celebrate this "holy holiday". So today, I want to give praise where it is due. If it were not for Christ's birth, there would be NO HOPE: No hope of heaven, no purpose for our life on earth, no reason to really celebrate. I have really been reminded this year that Christmas isn't about Christ's birth but about his death and resurrection. A song that "Testify" has been singing called "It's about the cross" (Go Fish) changed my thinking this year. It really is about the cross. That is why Jesus came. I am SO THANKFUl. This year I feel like I continuously blow it. I'm not the mom I want to be or the wife, or the daughter, or the aunt or the sister or the friend. (terrible grammar, I know) I sin and sin and sin. Thank the Lord that I am made righteous because Christ did the work for me. Oh, how I look forward to the day when I receive a glorified body and will not sin anymore.

So, if you have not had time to read the Christmas story, then here you go:
Luke 2:8-15
Now there were in the same country shepherds living out in the fields, keeping watch over thier flock by night. And behold, an angel of the Lord stood before them and the glory of the Lord shone around them, and they were greatly afraid. Then the angel said to them, "Do not be afraid, for behold, I bring you good tidings of great joy which will be to all people. For there is born to you this day in the city of David, a Savior, who is Christ the Lord. And this will be the sign to you: You will find a Babe wrapped in swaddling clothes, lying in a manger. And suddenly there was with the angel, a multitude of the heavenly host praising God and saying: "Glory to God in the highest and on earth peace, goodwill toward men!" So it was, when the anngels had gone away from them into heaven, that the sepherds said to one another, "Let us now go to Bethlehem and see this thing that has come to pass, which the Lord has made known to us."

John 3:16
"For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believeth on Him, should not perish but have everlasting life."

Merry Christmas! Don't forget to thank God for his precious gift.