All I Want For Christmas

Did you get what you wanted for Christmas? Was this the year you finally got a Red Ryder carbine-action, two hundred shot Range Model air rifle with a compass in the stock and this thing which tells time? Or were you looking for something else?

As this year draws to a close, and a new year begins, oftentimes we look to the last two weeks of the year to finally get what we want. We seek for gifts at Christmas that will bring happiness; or at least temporary happiness. 

We go through this season not really looking for gifts like toys and hats and clothing and fruitcake. Really what we are  longing for is to hear parents and children FINALLY tell us we matter “This is the year…” we exclaim; “when I will finally hear someone express true love to me by tell me that they are proud of me!”  

Or we put all of our hope into a new year fighting any cynicism that is boiling up inside of us. And it may not happen.

You see, we can get everything we want externally and still be missing something on the inside. That is where we really need something to change.

The true reason for celebrating Christmas is that God chose to become flesh and walk among us. He came to lay down His life and be resurrected and to once and for all settle the debt that was ours to pay and to give us what we really need.

He came that we might have life abundant! (See John 10:10)

He came because

“…God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have everlasting life. For God did not send His Son into the world to condemn the world, but that the world through Him might be saved.” (John 3:16-17)

He came to give us new hearts:

“I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit within you; I will take the heart of stone out of your flesh and give you a heart of flesh.” (Ezekiel 36:26) 

“.. . I will put My law in their minds, and write it on their hearts; and I will be their God, and they shall be My people. No more shall every man teach his neighbor, and every man his brother, saying, ‘Know the Lord,’ for they all shall know Me, from the least of them to the greatest of them, says the Lord. For I will forgive their iniquity, and their sin I will remember no more.” (Jeremiah 31:33b-34)

As this year draws to a close, and a new year begins, stop what you are doing and where you are going. Has the road you’ve chosen to travel this past year gotten you where you really want to be? 

And ask God to reveal Himself to you and tell you that you matter and how much He really loves you.

You too can finally get what you really want for Christmas.

"Scripture taken from the New King James Version. Copyright © 1982 by Thomas Nelson, Inc. Used by permission. All rights reserved."