Tis the Season

We are rapidly approaching the year ending holidays: Thanksgiving and Christmas. These days should bring about expressions of reverence for grace given to us by our loving Father and Lord. Thanksgiving is the time when we honor God for his gifts of provision and family. Of course, there is a greater ultimate provision and a greater family: the Lord Jesus as provider of our soul's salvation, and the family of the world-wide Church. For this reason, we should give greater honor for the glorious event of our Savior's birth. Many in our nation have lost the sense of holy awe that ought to accompany our celebration of Christmas, now referred to as the 'holiday season.' The idolatry of our hearts have ushered us into an exchange of holy awe for our Jesus to savoring the "awesomeness" of man's commercial enticements. Our spiritual reflections have given way to carnal obsessions; our confessed love for the eternal Christ, is replaced by an intense infactuation with the seduction of impersonal things that will soon fade away; our Christmas buying has become an addictive right of passage of the winter season that throws all wisdom out the window. It is no longer honor we give to the babe born in Bethlehem, but to materialistic, pleasure-mad culture. Lord help us if the trend continues!

Gerald Cornelius