I'll Be Home For Christmas

What is home? What do you think makes a place “home” for a person? My son Nathan always says “I want to go home!” Lately he has said that phrase to us at the oddest times, like when we are actually at our home! So it got me thinking, “what is my son saying when he states “I want to go home”?”
I think what is coming out of my four year olds’ mouth is a statement much deeper than what he or even I can comprehend. He is expressing the difference between a place you happen to live and a place you feel of as home. Because he is only 4 years old it is most likely not that home is based on history and it is not his external conditions of being home because often he says this sitting on the couch in our home.
Home for him is a relationship with each member of his family, mom, dad and sissy! Often he prays that God will bring home safely mom or dad whenever we might be gone because he misses the relationship.
In the same manner home for us is just like this, we might consider it a place, a feeling of security, a group of people we call family, but really it’s about genuine relationships. See for Jesus home is a place called the hearts of all mankind. Sure He is in a place called Heaven, but He was so homesick that He came to be with us so we could be where He is. Because He came we no longer are separated from Him!

Where is your home? I pray your heart finds its way home for Christmas in the arms of our Heavenly Father through the Christ child.

"The virgin will be with child and will give birth to a son, and they will call him Immanuel" —which means, "God with us." (Matthew 1:23)

O Christmas Tree

Growing up I remember so many great Christmas’s in my home. One Christmas my father decided to give me a gift that was a bit different. As a family we had a few traditions, like opening one gift on Christmas Eve and starting with our stockings on Christmas day. Each year someone got to play Santa and we our parents made sure that the sham Santa did not give away the big gift right away.

Usually we would get one big gift and that would be the last gift we opened. Well this year my dad went over the top and got me a gift I used for years to come. My sisters opened there big gifts and it was my turn. I noticed all I got was a piece of paper stuck in the tree. It was a clue and as I followed clue after clue I came to my gift. It was a dismantled basketball pole and at first I did not know what it was. After I put two and two together I got really excited!!

The gifts God has given us through Jesus Christ should get us excited, but often we don’t know what we are looking at or understand the incredible value that lies with each of them. Jesus has secured salvation, healing, victory, peace and blessing for us. Which one of those gifts have you yet to unwrap? Reach for them this season and unwrap an eternal gift from God!

“…for God's gifts and his call are irrevocable.” (Romans 11:29)

Altitude or Attitude

The Bible tells us that our attitudes are a key component to living well with God and with others. At the core of each day lies our attitude. What condition it is in will be the single most determining factor as to how productive we are, how much we enjoy the day, whether we love or hate.

I always get a kick out of riding in airplanes, not because of the freaked out people that hate to fly or because they serve such great meals! No, I enjoy it because of the perspective it gives me. No other time in my life do I see the things I see than when I am flying. The normal and mundane become exciting and fresh. And the new and undiscovered become my possibilities of tomorrow. What gives me that great experience is the airplane; for surely I nor can you fly on our own.

Attitudes are that commercial airliner. They can ground us, making us sit in a cramped angry space for hours or they can lift us to new heights and take us farther and faster than ever before. Don’t let your attitude control one minute of bad behavior. Control it, better yet, surrender it to Jesus Christ and remember He controlled his attitude long before we had to.

“Your attitude should be the same as that of Christ Jesus: Who, being in very nature God, did not consider equality with God something to be grasped, but made himself nothing, taking the very nature of a servant, being made in human likeness. And being found in appearance as a man, he humbled himself and became obedient to death— even death on a cross!” (Philippians 2:5-8)