Thursday, December 25, 2014

KEEPING CHRISTMAS


Merry Christmas!

            As I read the Christmas story I saw something I never noticed before.  Luke 2:20 says, “The shepherds returned, glorifying and praising God for all the things they had heard and seen, which were just as they had been told.”  We’ve often noticed the change in the shepherds.  The events of the night changed them into men who were glorifying and praising God!  In other words, they were transformed by what they had seen and heard.  They couldn’t help but worship and praise God!  But I never thought about what it means when it says, “They returned.”  They returned?  They returned to what?  The shepherds returned to their fields and to their flocks!  They returned to their real lives!  But they would never again live their lives in the same way.  From that day on they would live lives full of praise and glorifying God!  How could it be any other way?  I can imagine what it might have been like fifty years later when shepherds were out in those same fields.  One old shepherd is sitting there talking about how great God is when a young one asks him why he is always talking like that.  The old shepherd tells the story for only the millionth time; the story of the night when he was a young lad and sitting in these same fields.  It is the story of how God changed his life forever.  It is the story of the birth of the Messiah.  He only saw Jesus once after that night and that was over twenty years ago.  He’d been a shepherd all his life but he never stopped praising and glorifying God! 

            That’s what is called keeping Christmas well all the year around!  The coming of our Savior should be something that transforms our lives.  Receiving such a gift ought to cause us to praise and glorify God every day of the year.  No matter what our work, no matter where our work, we can, like the shepherds, praise and glorify God in whatever we do!  Christmas is a wonderful time for getting together with family and celebrating.  It’s a wonderful time for feasting and resting.  But if we want to keep Christmas well we will make sure it is a time of praising and glorifying God!  It is a time of worship!

 

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