When was the last time you were eager about something? It’s the Christmas season and Black Friday began the flurry of activity in every store you drive by. With great care, packages will be wrapped in colorful paper and donned with a tag and the razzle dazzle of raffia, tinsel, ribbons, and bows. Strategically, these gifts find their temporary home under the soft lighting of a Christmas tree adorned with ornaments – mementos of Christmas past.
Now, tell me that you don’t walk by that display of love and kindness and aren’t tempted to shake a box or pause for a moment or wonder as you try to figure out what they may have given you. Anticipation builds in you, yes? You are eager for that moment to come when you shred the paper, discard the box and bask in the glory of __________. It’s really about the love, right? We are eager to discover the display of love, that consideration of what your needs or desires are and the compulsion to fulfill them. Once we open the box, what inevitably happens is you begin to show it off to those in the room. Always with the heart felt “Thank you” to the giver.
As the days wear on, you wear the gift. You can’t help it. You want to use it or share it, perhaps even flaunt it.
When was the last time you were eager about something? Maybe it was a meal. Maybe it was a kiss. I was refreshed as I read the following words from Jesus’ brother, Jude.
1:3 Dear friends, although I was very eager to write to you about the salvation we share, I felt I had to write and urge you to contend for the faith that was once for all entrusted to the saints.
What was Jude eager to do? Write about salvation. Catch what he says though. He isn’t writing to a group of non-believers, seeking to convince them of their need for salvation. Jude was eager to write to other believers about the salvation that we share. He is eager to unpack the present of salvation and share all of its wonder and glory with those who received the same gift. You can almost sense his giddiness and excitement.
So, Holy Spirit questioned me. “When was the last time you were eager to talk with other believers about the salvation you share in Jesus?” Sure, we talk about salvation all the time as something someone else needs. How often do we just admire the fact that we were helpless and hopeless – rushing headlong toward eternal separation from God; and God rescued us. Our nastiness. His holiness. His righteousness placed on us at the point of humble surrender to Him. What a beautiful gift?!? When was the last time you were so excited that you are saved, that you had to tell someone, Christian or no?
My prayer for you is this – that God would return you to the joy of your salvation as David was in Psalm 51. I pray that in this season of distraction, that you would contend for the faith and keep the main thing the main thing. Jesus, fully God and fully man, who came as a baby . . . to live a perfect life . . . to die for our sins (past, present, and future) . . . and to come back from the dead to give us abundant life welling up to eternal life.
Grace and Peace.
