Keeping Christmas from Becoming ChristMESS (Pt. 3)

I am presenting 4 main points under the topic of "Keeping Christmas from Becoming ChristMESS". These steps will help you keep your sanity and focus during what is sometimes the most stressful time of the year.

Take the time to read the first two if you have not done so already, then look at today's which is posted below:

III. Reject The Pressure

Hebrews 13:5 Keep your lives free from the love of money and be content with what you have, because God has said, "Never will I leave you; never will I forsake you."

It seems like every year there is a new “gotta have” toy for the children. I remember the crazes of the Cabbage Patch Dolls, and the Beanie Babies, and while I haven’t kept up with the latest and greatest, I’m sure there are toys like that this year where every child in America seems to feel like they just “need it”!

A. Pressure To Compete

The competition starts the day after Thanksgiving with Black Friday as stores begin to have the sales that will help to get them in the black for the year as they advertise that they are going to have 20 of a certain item, and if you don’t get there at 4:00 AM in the morning, your life will not be complete because you will miss out. I’m sorry, but it’s going to take a lot more than what they’re offering to get me out of bed that early in the morning to stand out in the cold to compete with someone else for something. Maybe I’ll do it someday, I don’t know, but for now, they haven’t actually offered to pay me.

Well, I made up my mind a number of years ago, that I wasn’t going to worry about keeping up with the Jones’s, because I heard it through the grapevine that for the most part, the Jones’s are broke!
They may look real nice with all of the latest in gadgets and goodies, but like the commercial says, “they’re in debt up to their eyeballs”.

B. Pressure To Control

As you are out and about during the Christmas Season, realize that there are a lot of people out there who simply want to be “in control”, and I believe that if we are going to keep Christmas from becoming a MESS, then we need to back off a bit, and be the witness in our actions God wants us to be.

I don’t know if you notice it, but if there is ever a time of the year that aggressiveness peaks, it is during this time. Traffic is snarled while faces are snarling.

Even in the midst of all the turmoil that we face, we can still have the peace of God that passes all understanding, and maintain our witness to be a servant even in an environment where everyone wants to be the “ruler”.

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