How would you like to have a Christmas just like the first one in Bethlehem? Most Christians would have to say they don't want anything like the first Christmas. Who wants Bethlehem poverty, the manger, and the rejection at the inn? Who wants Christ's Christmas of love, sacrifice, and self-denial instead of the fake Christmas of self, comfort, and pleasure-seeking?
Of course, most of us modern Christians think we can have both, by having a worldly Christmas with a few spiritual touches. However, the Lord says; "No man can serve two masters. He will either hate one and love the other or be attentive to one and despise the other" (Mt 6:24).
"O you unfaithful ones, are you not aware that love of the world is enmity to God?" (Jas 4:4) "Have no love for the world, nor the things that the world affords. If anyone loves the world, the Father's love has no place in him, for nothing that the world affords comes from the Father. Carnal allurements, enticements for the eye, the life of empty show – all these are from the world" (1 Jn 2:15-16).
To have a Bethlehem-Christmas, we need a baptism of repentance (Lk 3:3), John the Baptist instead of Santa Claus, Confession instead of confusion, and fasting instead of feasting.
| PRAYER: | Jesus, have mercy. May I "learn to value the things that really matter, up to the very day of Christ" (Phil 1:10). |
| PROMISE: | "It is my wish that you may be found rich in the harvest of justice which Jesus Christ has ripened in you, to the glory and praise of God." –Phil 1:11 |
| PRAISE: | Praise Jesus, risen from the dead, Who puts to shame all the things of this passing world. |
Reprinted with permission from Presentation Ministries, a lay association of the Catholic Church that focuses on evangelization and discipleship through Bible teaching, daily Mass, the charisms of the Holy Spirit, and Small Christian Community. Their ministries include:
· One Bread, One Body
· Daily Bread Radio Program
· Annual Bible Institute
· Discipleship Retreats
· Guadalupe Bible College