Okay, friends...I've done this before and I'm sure I'll do it again. This is your chance to share, so I'll keep this brief.
A little over a week ago I gave you a Christmas challenge - to pick a gift to give Jesus, write it down, wrap it up and put it under the tree. So, here are my questions to which I want you to respond:
1. What did you give?
2. What was the reaction of your family?
3. If you didn't, then you have the opportunity right now to publicly give a gift to Jesus for His birthday.
I'll start - I gave the gift of memory this Christmas. As I thought through my options, every single one of them benefited me! It was like giving a gift to myself. However, I do know that there is great value to hiding God's word in your heart and though I do it periodically, I am not consistent. So I told Jesus I would memorize a verse a week. It doesn't sound like much, but I think as I go it will compound.
That's my gift. My family's reaction? I thought they'd roll their eyes, but they handled it fine. I was worried they would think I was preaching at them, but I think they realized that I was sincere. Hopefully next year there will be an additional gift for Jesus under the tree, alongside mine. It's a great way to have accountability in your spiritual walk. I am sure they will encourage me as I work on this all year.
All right, here goes...and by the way, silence will mean that you didn't do it...
I too gave the gift of Bible memorization. I wrote Jesus a letter, put it in a gold envelope, and had my granddaughter read it. No rolling of eyes, lots of smiles and, one, "Wow, that's neat." I will do it again next year and like you, am hoping there will be additional gifts to Jesus from my family. I loved this idea. Thanks for this challenge Kristen...
ReplyDeleteMy Gift to the Father and Challenge to myself is to spend more time reading the new study Bible I received this Christmas. It is so easy for me to say I have other pressing things to do then sit and spend time with my Lord and His word.
ReplyDeleteMy gift for Jesus is my time...making sure I give him my time before the urgency of the day takes over and pushes all my good intentions out the door.
ReplyDeleteOur computer's been mucking up and Dane fixed it while we were at the baby shower last night, so I'm finally able to catch up on all this reading I missed...
ReplyDeleteAnyway, I obviously missed this challenge, but we had one similar in the Advent devotional we were reading and my gift was fear. Sounds strange perhaps, but I'm often given over to fear (in case last night wasn't enough evidence of that) and I know that fear is not of God, so my gift to Jesus this year is fear. I'm choosing to do what He wants in spite of fear, so fear won't win. You're welcome to ask me how I'm doing with it, too -- I can definitely use the accountability!