This time of year it seems that everything we see and hear is about a gift. Buy this ring, buy this car, buy this toy. Even today’s music is about a gift. $465 Billion dollars will be spent this year on Christmas gifts in the U.S. alone, $465 BILLION. That breaks down to an average of $1,421 per person, PER PERSON! Here’s the math.
$465,000,000,000/327,160,000 people=$1,421.32 each.
Now I know some of us are saying, “That’s ridiculous, I’m not going to spend anywhere near $1,400 dollars.” But I bet we all know someone who will spend $1,400 on a single gift. But let me massage this a moment before I go off on the anti-Christmas rhetoric.
The point is, we place a lot of emphasis on “Giving” this time of year. LOTS of really good things happen during this season for many great causes. Food banks and shelters, rescues and ministries alike make up a great deal of their income during this season of giving. And as a Manager of a non-profit, I would like to say THANK YOU!
Thank you for your generosity. Thank you for your kindness, empathy, gentleness, and concern for your fellow man. Thank you for loving your Neighbor, not just the one next door that you know, but the one across town that you don’t. Thank you for trusting Churches, shelters, and ministries like ours to make a difference with your gifts. Thank you for giving a gift that enables us to not only rebuild a home, but restore a sense of dignity, security, Peace and Good Will.
That’s what it’s about isn’t it? Peace and Good Will, right? So today, in this season we would like to join in with the carol of angels and sing, “Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace, good will toward men.” But the story doesn’t end with angels singing in the skies and disappearing into heaven. The shepherds were touched. Touched enough to change their plans and G.O. and see this revelation that had been shown to them.
So they hurry off to Bethlehem to see this new proclaimed Good News for themselves. But that wasn’t the end either. They went and “made known abroad” the News and Truth concerning this Child, this Gift, Jesus, the Savior of the world. You see this whole thing about the Gift at Christmas time isn’t bought in a store, or made in a shop, but lived out in a life.
The Gift is born in your heart and grows to maturity through your life lived out in Faith. The shepherds didn’t just “see” something, they experienced it. Coming to see the Gift for yourself, having moved on what you have been told about this Child to “seeing” Him for yourself is life changing, life Giving!
It is our pleasure at Mission Cedar Hill to be Bearers of This Gift! It is our privilege to have been trusted with the ability, responsibility, and privilege to be Givers. And one of the greatest truths of giving this Gift, is that It is never depleted, never grows old, never breaks, never is unneeded. It is our desire at Mission Cedar Hill to be able to give away MORE of this Gift, more of this Life, more of this Love, more of Jesus.
Will you join us? You can help us give the Gift that the world will never be able to give. You can help us teach, encourage, and enable others to seek this gifts for themselves, experience this life changing moment in person. You can help us change homes, hearts, and lives for eternity. Will you help us? Just click HERE to find out how?
Mission Cedar Hill 