You know the
story of Jesus’ birth but do you know what the story is all about?
This week was my
return to El Shaddai. I have a bond with El Shaddai. There is learning wisdom,
growth and, most of all, Love in that church. For all the traveling I do, there
aren’t many churches that make me feel as at home as El Shaddai. For it to have
been so long and so much to have changed, El Shaddai is still vital to my
development. I have been and will continue to thank God for the influence of El
Shaddai in my life as well as the life of my family.
Let us pray.
Lord thank you
for your influence. Thank you for El Shaddai. God bless pastor White and the
White family. Forgive me my distractions. Thank you for keeping me focused on
Your word and Your Love despite the many other distractions. I trust I will
receive your word through Pastor White and that the message will continue
through me to all who actively seek You. We always pray in Jesus’ name. Amen
Many of us have
heard the story of Jesus’ birth so many times and in so many ways, that we
don’t pay attention even when we are reading it in the Bible. I’ve read the
Bible cover to cover many times and I admit to glancing over parts I’ve heard about
before especially the Nativity Story.
Read Luke chapters 1 and 2 in the
spirit of meditation and focus. Let God’s word inspire you to study more.
Realize YOU must study. YOU!
I can tell you but true revelations come from actively seeking God not from hearing
sermons. Sermons should inspire us to build and/or strengthen our relationships
with God.
Proverbs 4:5-9 says “get wisdom”,
“get understanding”, “it is the principle thing”. Ask for it. Seek it. By
principle we mean first. Everyone is running to prosperity churches, buying
books, running debt, and chasing dollars everywhere they can. But if they have no wisdom, they have
nothing.
In my family, we have a
superstition. If your right palm itches, you’re going to get some money. Take
it from me. I’ve seen money come and go. If there is any truth to the
superstition, when your palm itches, you better get in that Bible. Get some
wisdom FIRST! A fool and his money are soon parted (not in the Bible but true).
Wise people seek Christ. Not only
is money fleeting, it will not get you what you truly want. Most of us have
been looking for Love our entire lives. We never get it and instead fill our
lives with ‘stuff’. Eventually our lives become full of everything but Jesus.
James Chapter 3 warns us not only of the power of the tongue but of the
difference between God’s wisdom and worldly wisdom.
There is nothing wrong with knowledge.
A ton of people confuse, mix up and interchange knowledge, wisdom and
understanding (www.dictionary.com). Because
they are all interrelated most people grow to believe they are the same and
that if they have one, they have the other. Knowledge of Christ leads you to
God’s wisdom IF you keep seeking. It is unfortunate that there is never enough
stuff, but there can be too much God for us. It’s even sadder when we consider
how little satisfies us when it comes to God, while we are never satisfied with
the little things in life.
There is nothing wrong with
enjoying the fruits of your labor. We work hard to get what we have and we
should count all prosperity as a blessing from God. But when the ‘stuff’ gets
to be more important than God, you fall into spiritual slavery to ‘stuff’. All
of a sudden, your loving family and friends are not enough. Christmas stops
being about family and Love. Christmas becomes a competition to see who
has/gets the most ‘stuff’.
Through study, meditation and
prayer we see that Jesus “was rich, yet for your sakes he became poor, that
[you] through his poverty might be rich.” One thing I notice about truly
wealthy people, the few I’ve met and the tons I’ve studied, is that they don’t
make ‘stuff’ a priority. In the words of Dave Ramsey they – “Live like no other
in order to live like no other”. On Sunday (it was Sunday more than it was
Christmas) Pastor mentioned we must “go where we’ve never been to get what you
never had”.
Now, let me be clear. My focus is
giving my self up to God. I only look for opportunities to give and receive
Love. My gift on Christmas was spending it in L.A. for the first time in five
years. My gift was sitting with Pastor White at El Shaddai. My gift was seeing
my changed cousin. My gift was a Snow Day with my girls. I also got to see my
nephew act (well!) in A Christmas Carol. I got to see my niece practice and
perform “What Christmas Means To Me” by Stevie Wonder. Above all I was blessed
to be able to use my wisdom to keep Christmas full of Jesus and not ‘stuff’.
My one and only wish in writing
this is that people who didn’t get those types of gift get them one day.
Hopefully sooner than later. I pray that people, who became overwhelmed with
‘stuff’, find salvation. If it’s only salvation from ‘stuff’, I pray that’s the
beginning of a total salvation. I pray that we reclaim the power that ‘stuff’
has over us, the power that makes us risk and give our lives, that hurts our
feelings, that makes us be nice to douche-bags, to stress ourselves out and
simply distracts us from God. We will
have power over ‘stuff’ again.
Christmas and everyday can and will be full of Christ. And because I know better, I claim it all
in the name of Jesus.
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