Devotions with Pastor Holmes

I thought you might enjoy a couple of letters that I recently read of little children writing to Santa.  The first one stated, “Dear Santa, you didn’t bring me anything good last year.  In fact, you didn’t bring anything good the year before either.  This year is your last chance!” -  Albert   “Dear Santa, there are three little boys that live in our house.  There’s Jeffery, he is two, there’s David, he is four, and there’s Norman, he is six and half.  Jeffery is good some of the time, David is good some of the time, Norman is good all the time.  I am Norman.” Then there is a story of a little boy who was wanting a watch for Christmas.  He kept pestering his dad about it and finally his dad said, “Time out, if you mention a watch one more time, you for sure won’t get one.”  Well the night before Christmas, at the dinner table the little boy asked if he could pray for the meal.  The dad was surprised, but said “Sure!”  The boy asked for permission to quote some scripture and his dad said, “I think that would be just great.”  So the little boy quoted Mark 13:37,
“I tell you now what I told you before, ‘watch’.”
 Well it is the Christmas season and it is possible to miss Christmas with all the decorations in the malls and shopping centers, the music that comes out of speakers on the sidewalks, advertisements on television and newspapers, in spite of all this it’s possible to miss Christmas.  Note those who missed it in the Christmas story; the innkeeper, full house, good business, secure, things going well, he was just too busy for Christmas.  And then there were the religious leaders, they could quote Micah 5:2, “but as for you Bethlehem, too little to be among the clans of Judah, from you One will go forth for Me to be ruler in Israel.  His goings forth are from long ago, from the days of eternity.”  They had their rituals, their traditions, their religion, they just didn’t need Jesus.  They missed Christmas because they were indifferent.  Then there was Herod the King, nobody liked him, he was paranoid, always thought someone was going to steal his throne. He had his mother and his brother-in-law, and his wife, ruthlessly murdered and at one time had all the Sanhedrin killed.  He had heard about Jesus’ birth and yet in hearing that, he had all the babies under two killed.  Herod missed Christmas because he had a fear problem.
These are still the same reasons people miss Christmas today.  Don’t let them be ours.

Pastor L.D. Holmes
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