Throughout the month of December, the Nugget will be featuring articles focused on important lessons in our Spiritual walk that we can learn from Christmas. This 11 part series features several different authors, but the focus is the same: How can the celebration of Christ’s birth help us in our daily walk with Christ? Today’s lesson is the third of a 4-part mini-series from Nugget moderator and author, Lynona Gordon Chaffart…
Last Thursday, we took a look at how all the signs of Christmas around about each of us reminds us to spend time praising God.
This is an interesting thought, really, especially with such Bible verses as the following: “I will praise the LORD at all times. I will constantly speak his praises.” (Psalms 34:1 NLT) I mean, let’s be realistic here: How can one constantly praise God?
Yet this is what we are admonished to do.
I had another “praise conundrum” when I read Psalms 148: “Praise him, sun and moon! Praise him, all you twinkling stars!Praise him, skies above! Praise him, vapors high above the clouds! Let every created thing give praise to the Lord, for he issued his command, and they came into being. He set them in place forever and ever. His decree will never be revoked.” (Vs. 3-6 NLT) Can someone please tell me how a “thing” can praise God? How can the sun praise God? It has no mouth! How can the moon praise God? It doesn’t even have its own light source! And what about the skies and the vapors? These things have no brains, no means of independent thought!
But wait. Perhaps understanding how the works of God’s creation can praise Him will give us some insight into how we can praise Him constantly!
So just how does the sun praise God?
By doing what it was created to do: by burning brightly to warm and light the Earth, and by spinning around and creating a gravitational pull that keeps the planets in orbit!
What about the moon? Just how does the moon praise God? By obediently following its orbital pattern around the earth; by continually reflecting the light of the sun.
How do the skies and the vapours praise God? By existing in obedience to God’s ultimate plan!
We don’t need a mouth to praise God. Hey! We don’t even need a brain to praise Him! What we do need is to be where He wants us to be, doing what He has created us to do! We need to live in obedience to Him; we need to fulfill the calling He has placed on our lives! And in doing so, we are praising God … Not only once in awhile when we think about it; but all the time! And when we do, we are fulfilling the Bible’s suggestion that we praise Him ALL the time!
If simply being, fulfilling our purpose, obeying God’s commands all give Him honor and glory and praise, then it’s easy to praise God all the time, right? So we don’t need the reminders of the Christmas season to praise Him, right?
If only it were so easy. In a society where most of us are not comfortable with what we were created to be, this becomes increasingly difficult. In a world that “expects” us to live one way or another, where insecurity hampers our every move, most of us don’t even know who we were created to be or what God would have us to do with our lives…
Yes, the deeper you think on this one, the more complex it becomes…
But the message of Christmas is not a complex one. Could it be that we are overthinking this whole idea of praising God? What if we were to focus on one thing alone: The wonders of the Christ Child?
The Baby Jesus would grow up in a hostile world. He would be badgered by temptation, the same way we are. He would be ridiculed and beaten and bullied and mocked. Yet just like the sun and the moon continually praise God in their very being, Jesus did the same. In His obedience, in His willingness to be led by the Spirit of God, Jesus’ very life was a melody of praise; and He accomplished this by spending time with God, by loving Him enough to make Him His #1 priority. Jesus prayed, sometimes for the entire night, and He was always listening and watching for where God was at work (“My Father is always working, and so am I.” John 5:17 NLT; “I tell you the truth, the Son can do nothing by himself. He does only what he sees the Father doing. Whatever the Father does, the Son also does.” John 5:19 NLT)
We may not be God incarnate, but we can pray and seek God’s face.
Okay. That sounds simple enough. But with all the distractions around us, it’s not always easy to hear God’s voice, to recognize the purpose He has placed on our lives.
Here again, the answer is the same: We must contemplate the Christ Child. He lived a life of perfect submission, always showing love to those around Him, always being God’s hands and feet on this Earth. We can follow in His steps. We, too, can strive to live lives of perfect submission, always seeking where we can be God’s hands and feet on Earth. We can show selfless love to those around us
How do we praise God continually? By following the example of the Christ-Child! By continually seeking God, and by being His hands and feet on earth, ever reaching out to one another in selfless love!
And that is the lesson we can learn from Christmas!
In His love,
Lyn
Lynona Gordon Chaffart, Speech-Language Pathologist, mother of two adult boys, Author — “Aboard God’s Train — A Journey With God Through the Valley of Cancer”, Author and Moderator for The Nugget, a tri-weekly internet newsletter, Scriptural Nuggets, a website devoted to Christian devotionals and inspirational poems, The Illustrator, a four-times-a-week internet newsletter, and the Sermon Illustrator website, all with Answers2Prayer Ministries.
(To access the entire “Lessons From Christmas” mini-series, please click here.)