The Seven Gifts of Christmas #1

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I was standing in line at the Post Office this morning—a last minute gift that needed to be sent off in the hopes that it will arrive before New Year’s. The line-up was quite impressive for the 24th of December. Weren’t we all told that all this mailing had to be done early in the month if we expected anything to arrive before Christmas? A lady rushed up behind me, harried and hurried. She was quite perturbed to discover we were all waiting for the postal clerk to get back from her break. “Nobody gets a break at Christmas!” she exclaimed.

Now isn’t that the truth? And as usual, as custom demands, we end up giving the gifts to the wrong person.

It is Jesus' birthday, is it not?

We rush around going nuts for everyone except the One celebrating the birthday. Now THAT is strange—or should be.

So in order to attempt to regain some focus, instead of The Twelve Days of Christmas, this blog is going to celebrate The Seven Gifts of Christmas over the next week. These are all gifts that I need to give to Jesus in honour of His birthday. And they all come from Revelation 2 and 3.

Here’s the first one.

John wrote down the messages that God gave him for the seven churches of the then Christianized world. The first message was to the church in Ephesus. This church was standing for truth and righteousness, but somehow had forgotten all about the relationship that all that truth and righteousness sprang from. The message: “You have forsaken your first love. Remember the height from which you have fallen! Repent and do the things you did at first” (Revelation 2:4, 5).

When people first fall in love they can’t NOT be in constant touch with that “significant other.” All of life and breath hinges on that other person, on pleasing them, communicating with them, thinking about them, spending time with them. As that first blush of love fades, other things take precedence and before long, those gifts that express love are going toward other priorities.

Haven’t we all been there in our relationship with the Lord? We may even have been passionate about the cause of Christ and, at the same time, have lost our passion for Christ Himself.

So my first gift to Jesus on the occasion of His birthday is a return to my FIRST LOVE. I need to fall in love with Him all over again, to be even more passionate about knowing Him than I am about defending His cause or completing His mission.

I want Him to renew my passion for Him so that I can give Him my first love as my first gift of Christmas. The neat thing about the gifts that we give Him is that they originate with Him in the first place (James 1:17). As I wait on Him, He will ignite the flame of love again that I have left to smolder. Then I can give back what He has always so graciously bestowed on me.