LIVING IN COMPLETE JOY

Philippians 2: ¹ So if there is any encouragement in Christ, any comfort from love, any participation in the Spirit, any affection and sympathy, ² complete my joy by being of the same mind, having the same love, being in full accord and of one mind. ³ Do nothing from selfish ambition or conceit, but in humility count others more significant than yourselves.

So how are you today?  Two days left before all of the shopping is culminated by unwrapping presents, gathering all of the friends and family, and setting the table all to sit down to............................what?  Allow me the opportunity to back track; Mary and Joseph wasn't going to a celebration, nor was this full term pregnant woman joyful about the journey they had to make, and if Joseph was truly human, he probably was tired & frustrated too.  But all of that seemed not to matter the moment the labor pains ceased and they wrapped their minds & cloths around the foretold birth of the Christ infant they now held.   Will you allow yourself to get lost in the wonderment of the meaning of CHRIST coming into the world?  Will you too, wrap your mind around this reason to be filled with and exuded by the JOY HE brings?   TODAYS SCRIPTURE SAYS " if there's anything to be encouraged....comforted by......complete HIS JOY by being......"   FOLKS this reason to celebrate aint about you!  But how YOU handle it can make it JOYFILLED just by being as humble as HE came.     I get the whole wanting to make the DAY larger than life (trees, ornaments, lights, presents, action!) but let's not lose focus.  Mary & Joseph JOY WAS COMPLETE because their focuses was on the ONE, nothing else mattered.   The wise men showed up a few years later with gifts, but their focuses continued to be on caring for the ONE!  HOW in your celebration are you CARING FOR THE ONE or IS HE not the visible focus in your celebration?

SO as friends and family gather make sure you aren't doing any of this for your glory, but rather ALL THAT YOU DO, do it in humility, and love so that people can look past you, your bought or prepared feast, and presents, and see your reasoning was for CHRIST alone!  May your Christmas be Merry & Filled with the JOY OF THE LORD!  LGLP