Glorious Father, gracious LORD, thank you for Christmas.
Thank you for this time of year when people turn their hearts and minds and souls to faith and peace and hope and love.
Thank you for the songs that sing of your glory, the fulfillment of your plan to come to us as a baby, the Word made flesh. Thank you that Immanuel, God With Us, came down from the very throne of heaven into this broken world while we were still struggling with sin and evil.
Thank you for the humility you showed in coming not just as a child, but a child born in the most of humble of all circumstances imaginable –born to peasants of no great reputation or status, delivered in a stable, wrapped in cloths meant to comfort a lamb, and laid in a feeding trough as a crib.
Thank you for the wonder and joy and excitement of children at this time of year. Please grant that your Holy Spirit would fill us all like that. Thank you that the true spirit behind Christmas is the Holy Spirit
Lord, thank you that the King of kings and LORD of all lords would come to us in this way as a gift to restore the relationship between you and all of humanity. Thank you that you open hearts to give to each other, to pour out blessings not just to people we know and love, but to all who are made in your image. Thank you for the relationships we enjoy, renew, and celebrate in our gatherings.
Thank you that the Light of the World came in the dark of night, that the night sky was filled with your glory as your angel armies proclaimed “Peace on earth, good will to men.” Mighty Lord, thank you that the message of peace and good will still lives in the hearts and lives of people all over this earth. Thank that the Christmas lights in all their glorious colors people put up all over the world remind us of that message.
Most of all, LORD, thank you for the love that is so high, so wide, so deep, and so long that it defies description or the ability to fully comprehend it. Thank you that this amazing, glorious, powerful, world-changing, eternal, magnificent, scandalous love would walk the dusty, dirty, streets of this world as one of us –and lay down His life for us. Thank you that death could not hold Him and the grave could not keep Him! Thank you that this Savior, the long-awaited Messiah, the Lamb of God, was and is Jesus Christ.
We celebrate you, LORD Jesus! We worship and glorify your holy name. We proclaim you as our one and only Savior! We pledge our lives to follow you, to learn from you, to grow deeper in you each day in faith, in trust, in knowledge, and in complete and utter surrender to your rule and reign as LORD of heaven and earth!
Jesus, LORD at thy birth!
AMEN!
Today’s Praise
Luke 2:30-32
“For my eyes have seen Your salvation
Which You have prepared before the face of all peoples
A light to bring revelation to the Gentiles,
And the glory of Your people Israel.” (NKJV)