Christmas Spirit

“God sent His One and Only Son into the world so that we might live through Him”  I John 4:9

John knew how to capture the very essence of the Spirit of Christmas.

Words like spirit are very simple to say but a bit hard to define.

Cambridge dictionary offers several options, but even these are not definitive:

            n. A state of mind or attitude;

            n. Something that one can feel to be present but cannot see.

Don’t you hate it when the definitions are not very definitive? Seems to defeat the concept of defining, does it not?

No wonder Jesus said, “The wind (lit spirit) blows where it pleases and you hear its sound but you don’t know where it comes from or where it is going. That’s the way it is with everyone born of the Spirit.”

Jesus explains: I hear it but I can’t see it. I know something is there but I don’t know how it got there or where it will go. But it is real.

So. . .

Spirit is real; but we can’t see it.

Spirit is actual; but we can’t measure it.

Spirit is contagious; but we can’t bottle it.

“What gives, Dan? You mean Something is real but we can’t see or fully understand it?”

PRECISELY.

It’s that way about God and spiritual things. Just about the time we think we have God or spiritual things defined and nailed down, it appears God delights in flipping our understanding and supposed definitive ideas upside down.

God loves to show us we don’t know all we think we know. He is greater than our bandwidth of understanding or formulating. He has more depth and dimension than we have capacity.

God is God. I am not.

No wonder He instructs us: “Without faith it is impossible to please God for the one who comes to God must believe that He is real (exists) and that He rewards those who seek Him.” Hebrews 11:6

He is MORE REAL than what we can see. All the stuff we see is aging and in some state of decay. HE is NOT. EVER.

And that is why we, you and me, need Christmas Spirit.

Christmas Spirit calls me to give to GOD—One I can’t see;

things I can see-like my time, my energy, my stuff;

to gain what I can’t see—eternal life, His power and rest, riches that last.

Christmas Spirit is a choice we make that says, “God, I choose to let You be real to me and make sure I know it.”  It blesses me as well as others.

Christmas Spirit will not slip up on you or happen to you. It’s a choice you make to open up to what is really real and to see what you can’t see.

Yet.

“Be it done for you according to your faith.”  Matthew 9:29