Beware the Post Christmas Funk

The build up to the Christmas holiday in our culture is frankly overwhelming! Christmas music begins to dominate the airwaves soon after October is in life's rear view mirror. Retailers start pushing their Christmas sales before Thanksgiving, and the Hallmark channel begins its popular "Countdown to Christmas" the final week of October! Pressure is on to buy, bake, and decorate. Expectations for this "Most Wonderful Time of Year" run high. And before we know it, Christmas is here and gone, leaving many of us exhausted by the hubbub of the season and feeling robbed of the joy we thought we would experience and did not. But wait ... perhaps rushing off to the mall or going online to use our gift cards will help us overcome "the blues!" But will it? 

So after all the gifts are unwrapped and our family gatherings are done, how do we handle this post Christmas "hangover" that so many of us experience? Here's just one suggestion. Take a deep breath (or two or three or more!), sit down, and hear these words from God through the pen of the Apostle Paul: "For you know the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ: Though he was rich, for your sake he became poor, so that by his poverty you might become rich" (2 Corinthians 8:9). Take a few moments to reflect on your standing in this life because of Christ's birth that first Christmas morning. You are RICH! But you might be thinking, "Hold on John! After this frigid arctic blast, it's going to be tough for me to pay the heating bill. I don't call that 'rich' by any means!" 

It may be very true you are not "rich" as the world defines the word. But if you have chosen to come to Christ, receiving him as the God-Man Savior and Lord, God says you are indeed rich! And by that he means rich in the ways that matter. Consider these words from Ephesians chapter one: "Blessed is the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us with EVERY spiritual blessing in the heavens in Christ" (Ephesians 1:3). The Apostle Paul goes on to name some of these riches: Our adoption into God's family, our being set free from our bondage to sin, God's forgiveness, and even a future inheritance awaiting us in heaven! 

Allow those words to sink into your mind, heart and soul. For those of us who claim an allegiance to Christ, we are rich! Not with the riches we will have to leave behind one day. But eternal riches to lift our hearts today, tomorrow and for all eternity! 

Thanks for stopping by, 

PJ