December 14th

What is your goal for today? Maybe you have a checklist of things to get done today or maybe you don’t know for sure what the day will hold for you at work. Either way, the challenge for us this Christmas season is to approach our day differently. How different would life be for us and others if our goal for each day was to bestow healing upon whoever we can. What if bringing healing to others was our goal each day? Our approach to everything we do would be different. I am not necessarily talking about physical healing, I mean healing of the heart, the brokenness, a filling of the emptiness. What if we purposely poured the healing balm of the Holy Spirit out over and into everyone that we meet whenever we can? What if we made it a point to seek out the hurting and minister to them with prayer, words of healing and encouragement, and listening ears? Our hearts and theirs would change. Relationships would be different, priorities would be different, our whole day would be different.

What if life wasn’t about us and what we could accomplish or get? What if we put Jesus first and then others? What if our prayer time was spent in worship and then intercession for others? What if we took Jesus at His word and did what He asked us to do?

Jesus made disciples and then asked them to make disciples and us to make disciples. He didn’t waste any time talking about or showing his disciples how to successfully buy the best houses or cars or wardrobes. He spent time ministering to broken, hurting people and teaching about dealing with broken hearts/broken people. The new commandments that He gave were to love God with our whole being and love others.

Matthew 22:37-39 Jesus replied: “ ‘Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.’ This is the first and greatest commandment. And the second is like it: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’”

Instead of trying to find a way to fit loving others into our life, what if our life was about loving others first and we fit everything else around that? We certainly would have to trust God to provide for us and we might need to simplify our lives. But we would be much more fulfilled. We would have a lot less stress and a lot less baggage. Christmas season would be a great time to make this change.

Rather than waiting to make this a New Year’s resolution, let’s actually try to make it a habit now so that by the time January hits, we can put something else on our resolution list.

Start today, make it a goal to pour some healing out to someone today, look for opportunities. Start with one person today and work your way up to the point that you are impacting everyone you meet. The world around us is FULL of hurting, lost, broken people dying for healing love. Be compassionate, be wise, be discerning, be brave, be bold. Take a chance and speak words of life to someone today.

The greatest gift we can give to those around us is the healing love of Jesus. Let’s quit hiding our light until we decide it is time to take it out and shine. Let’s quite living for ourselves and make living for Jesus and being His light the goal. We must ask ourselves, can the world tell I love Jesus? Let’s let Christ’s love compel us!

2 Corinthians 5:14-15 For Christ’s love compels us, because we are convinced that one died for all, and therefore all died. And he died for all, that those who live should no longer live for themselves but for him who died for them and was raised again.

Matthew 5:14-16 You are the light of the world. A town built on a hill cannot be hidden. Neither do people light a lamp and put it under a bowl. Instead they put it on its stand, and it gives light to everyone in the house. In the same way, let your light shine before others, that they may see your good deeds and glorify your Father in heaven.

Luke 9:23-24 Then he said to them all: “Whoever wants to be my disciple must deny themselves and take up their cross daily and follow me. For whoever wants to save their life will lose it, but whoever loses their life for me will save it.”

Jesus, change the way I think about my day, my life, my time. Help me to make bringing healing love to others a goal. Help me to see everything, every minute, every person, in my life through your eyes. Help me keep your perspective as I go through this Christmas season and celebrate the gift of you. Help me to keep eternity in mind as I make choices and prioritize my time. Thank you for this reminder and your patience. Help me Jesus.