Taking a trip

I want you to take a trip with me this morning. We are heading to the mall. We pull into a parking lot, people are all around, going about their daily activities. They are smiling, they are full of life, not sulking from one place to another. Not looking at others with judgement, concern or doubt. A person steals the spot you were going to pull into, but instead of wanting to be angry we are happy that we have to walk a few extra feet. We get out of the car and the person who took our spot was waiting there for us. He walks up to us and says I am so sorry for that, I didn't realize that was where you were going to park. Will you forgive me, we shake hands and continue about our shopping routine. Bumping into people that are smiling, full of so much more then the lives that we once remembered. Does it seem like a dream, a fairy tale? Does it seem impossible? Well in the state that people are today, you are right it is not possible.

But are you that way? Are you so much in a hurry that you have forgotten what Christmas is about? Have you forgotten the very thought of who came to earth to save us? Have you forgotten what He gave to us and we are so lost in the busy life that we can't see that others need Him today.

Instead of greeting people with hate, anger and fear, greet them with the love that Jesus has given us, but don't be fake, for He was not sent to us as a fraud, but as our Savior. Today how can you show some one that Jesus loves them? Are you married? Instead of snapping at your wife/husband answer them with love. Have you forgotten how to love, how to live? Isn't it time that we all take we start not basing what we do on others, but start basing what we do on God.

You want true happiness, you have to forget that word, because true happiness is a feeling, it will come and go, but Jesus has brought us Joy, Hope and Peace. Today it is about finding Jesus and in that we will find so much more.

The song that comes to mind this morning is:

Joy to the World 

Joy to the World , the Lord is come!

Let earth receive her King;

Let every heart prepare Him room,

And Heaven and nature sing,

And Heaven and nature sing,

And Heaven, and Heaven, and nature sing.

Joy to the World, the Savior reigns!

Let men their songs employ;

While fields and floods, rocks, hills and plains

Repeat the sounding joy,

Repeat the sounding joy,

Repeat, repeat, the sounding joy.

No more let sins and sorrows grow,

Nor thorns infest the ground;

He comes to make His blessings flow

Far as the curse is found,

Far as the curse is found,

Far as, far as, the curse is found.

He rules the world with truth and grace,

And makes the nations prove

The glories of His righteousness,

And wonders of His love,

And wonders of His love,

And wonders, wonders, of His love.

Take a minute and read through that hymn and see that the Joy you seek is not part of the world, but was brought to us to free us from our lack of joy, our lack of peace, but yet we say we can't find it, is it because we have forgotten how to look for it, just as we forgot how to truly love and how to truly be loved. Isn't it time to stop looking in men and women and start looking for the truth and grace? Today is a day of pure joy, but Jesus is the only reason for the season, not Santa Claus, not ourselves, but Jesus.