Christmas gift

Feliz Navidad!

It's a joy to write about my favorite day of the year, Christmas! It is definitely a time of joy and peace, because we are celebrating the birth of our Lord Jesus Christ. The glory of God is really magnificent because an all-powerful God will come to be born as a little baby, who will eventually grow up to be a man who live without sin, and die for the sins of the whole earth, so that everyone who has faith in Him can be saved. And this not by our merits, but all by the immeasurable amount of God's grace.

The last sermon from Simply Church (by Pastor Lew) was about Christmas gifts, and I want to elaborate a bit on that sermon. Why do we give gifts to people during Christmas? God gave us Jesus during this day, so perhaps we are to be gracious to give gifts. On the other hand, there is crazy push for shopping (boxing day) that make this season very materialistic. And this influence us to make this gift-giving aspect of Christmas to be more about buying cool stuff to our families and close friends rather than giving what is more important.

Pastor Lew talked about 4 things that we should give: presence, forgiveness, reconciliation, and I don't really remember the last one (sorry it is getting late for me).

I agree those are the more important things to give, rather than the actual physical gift. I am not saying that giving the physical gifts are bad, but the previous items should be given first. For example, if a son can just give their parents a Christmas gift, but choose to not spend time with then during Christmas. Or there is a quarrel among siblings, but they still give each other a gift, but don't really ask for forgiveness and reconciliation.

As Christians, we are called to imitate Jesus. And the result of Jesus' ministry on earth is that man can come into the presence of God, attain forgiveness of sins, and be reconciled with God. So we ought to spend time with people dear to us, to forgive others from their wrongdoings to us, and to seek reconciliation. Doing all these things are really great gifts, and gives God the glory He deserves!

"The Word became flesh and made his dwelling among us. We have seen his glory, the glory of the One and Only, who came from the Father, full of grace and truth." - John 1:14