How can we celebrate Christmas this year with the loss of loved ones through death and divorce? How can we celebrate the coming of God to earth with joyous assurance? The answer is found in the True Message of Christmas! Christmas is not getting presents under the tree. Christmas is not getting a school holiday or day off of work. Christmas is not having family gatherings with lots of delicious food. Christmas in not our reaching out or reaching up for God – it is God reaching down to us! The only proper response to God’s gift is found in a faith which believes that at the center of the universe is an undefeatable power of Love on which we can rely and to which we are called to join our efforts.

Joy does not come as a result of our efforts to capture it! Joy remains a gift. Joy is a gift of God to mankind. Why then can we try so hard to find this joy and miss it totally?

We look for joy in all the wrong places. When our only goal is to find joy, we will find a counterfeit form of happiness, which may have gaiety, but little long-term satisfaction. Happiness is the result of our environment – where we are and what fun things we may be doing – “Are we having fun yet!” Happenings bring happiness, but happenings never produce joy.

We identify happiness and joy with the cushioned life. A life free from sorrow, pain and want would seem to promise happiness. But, what can a life of untrammeled bliss know about living? A heart of joy is found in those who achieve and dare – who have tried their powers against antagonism – who have met sickness and bereavement and have tempered their souls in the fires of adversity.

Happiness is elusive because we are purely selfish in our search! Our goals are self-centered and our search is self-minded. But, true joy, lasting joy, comes when we see the smiles of others when we have bent our backs for them.

We fail to see joy as a miraculous gift from God! The greatest part of our failure to find joy is that we do not realize joy is not something we can achieve as a possession. Joy was sent, according to the Christmas angelic choir – the “good news of great joy that will be for all the people” was that A SAVIOR IS BORN!

God’s Christmas gift of joy is found in a way of life that is joyous! Jesus’ life was one of continuing joy because of His relationship with His Father. Do not dismiss lightly His sorrow, His tragedies, His frustrations, disappointments, nor His death on the Cross. Those were real! But, the truth of god’s Word shows us that Jesus embraced these with joy unmarred by His problems, because He knew He was accomplishing His Father’s plan for creation.

Jesus was criticized often because He enjoyed life! People called Him a glutton, winebibber, and party-er because of His associations with people who were “unholy”, according to the religious. But, when we re-read His Sermon on the Mount, we notice the nine ways Jesus told us that we would be envied by others, how we could be a part of the truly joyous and blessed: The “poor in spirit”, “those who mourn”, “the meek”, “the hungry”, “the merciful”, “the pure in heart”, “the peacemakers”, “those persecuted”, “those reviled”, and “those falsely accused”. Jesus’ whole life is a joyous assurance of God’s love and care for us!

What does Christ provide for us out of which joy will come? Jesus Christ offers the inner stability of a dynamic faith. Jesus offers us no outer security against the storms of life, but He brings the understanding and confidence that our well-being is under His Divine control. Jesus promised that no matter what the circumstances of life were, that he would never leave us or forsake us!

Jesus Christ offers us the opportunity of wholeness. Joy is always the by-product of Holiness or Wholeness. There is no other way for us to be fully alive, totally aware, or completely fulfilled outside of a life totally committed to the Lordship of Jesus Christ.

The only pathway to wholeness is by complete conversion of our life! It can be accomplished only by our being “born again” or “born from above”. Only as followers of Jesus Christ can we find freedom from guilt and condemnation and peace with God; thereby, assuring us of joy!

Jesus Christ offers us the redemptive usefulness of a vital life! Remember, love gives! God so loved the world that He gave what has been described as “the unspeakable gift” – His only Begotten Son! Self-seeking is self-defeating and never produces nor leads to joy.

We have the joyous assurance that when we give our lives to Jesus – then give our lives to others as we serve Christ – the joy promised that first Christmas will be ours today!

“Joy to the world, the Lord has come. Let earth receive His joy…”