Isn’t it crazy that overnight the stores shelves went from Halloween costumes to Christmas lights?
The Word says we live “from strength to strength” but the World says we live “from shopping season to shopping season.” Guaranteed the minute the Christmas lights come down the Valentine chocolates and teddy bears will line the shelves. Not that I blame them. Truly, if we didn’t have the joy and wonder of Christ to celebrate of course we’d have to buy stuff to celebrate!
But we have something so much greater to celebrate, don’t we? And don’t we also have to be intentional every single year, to actually honor Christ at His birth instead of being swept along in the sea of consumerism and forgetting Him altogether? I know I do. And doing so doesn’t mean we can’t have a Christmas tree or bake cookies or give meaningful gifts, but it means preparing our hearts to honor Christ’s birth.
How can we do this?
We’ll look together at just a few of the innumerable ways. And please, I would love to hear from you how your family prepares to celebrate Christ in the midst of Christmas. So feel free to leave a comment with your idea.
To kick it off, I’d love to share this video with you, from one of my favorite missions organizations, Gospel for Asia. GFA is a truly remarkable organization, and if you’ve never read it, I highly encourage you to read Revolution in World Missions (click here for a free copy!). But only if you want to be ruined for regular life. 🙂
For today, will you please watch this video (all the way to the end!), and share your thoughts with us. Let’s prepare our hearts together … {Thanks for watching, and reading.}
2 thoughts on “Preparing your heart to honor Christ's birth”
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hey kari! well, we’ve not done a christmas married before, obviously, but last christmas we did an advent Bible Study that was a great way to focus on the preparation for the season, and i blogged about it along the way. and this year i’m so so so excited to have the advent candle wreath that Ann Voskamp’s children make on our table to mark the coming of the Light of the World, with light!
Thank you so much for sharing this. I have been feeling so torn about what to do for Christmas, yet feeling guilty for “leaving my kids out” of all the excitement (2 yr and 1 yr). Yet they are so young I know that now is the time to teach them the right way instead of teaching them to “need” or depend on worthless stuff. Although I have bought a few gifts for them, I REALLY appreciate your posting this. This is such good insight and perspective to help us to change some things that just dont feel right! I will certainly be praying for more direction on this! I am very glad I accidently stumbled onto your blog this morning! I just ordered the free book you recommended.