Many of us carry fond memories of laboring over letters to Santa Claus. We wanted to be as honest as possible in touting our gift-worthy virtues and actions without grossly overstating the truth. But we didn’t want to be so honest that we disqualified ourselves from deserving anything other than a lump of coal. Oh, the moral dilemmas we faced as children!
It’s funny. As a Mimi (grandmother), I don’t remember receiving a Christmas wish list from any one of my five grandkids that ever listed qualifications for receiving a gift other than the fact that he or she was my grandchild. They have always known that if they asked for something, Grandpa and Mimi would move heaven and earth to give them what they wanted. Our grandkids know that they are greatly cherished and dearly loved.
And we are beyond delighted any time that we can give a gift or do something for our grandkids that makes them happy.
We’re blessed to have sweet, loving, and reasonable grandkids – they’ve never been outlandish in their requests. But they’ve never been bashful either. Since they were tots, I’ve asked them for their Christmas and birthday lists each year.
And every year I receive lists that give all sorts of purchasing options. They love it – I love it – the Retailers (aka Amazon) love it!
They enthusiastically accept their gifts and everyone is happy.
Whether it is relationships with your children, your children’s children, nieces and nephews, the kids next door, people who live down the street, co-workers, or friends, most of us can relate to someone with whom you have a similar relationship. It pleases you when you can unselfishly show that person(s) kindness.
And yet, we become bashful when it comes to asking for and accepting the abundant array of gifts that our Heavenly Father has prepared for us. Gifts that He wants to give to us. Gifts that He would lavish upon us if only we would ask.
James, also known as James The Just, the Leader of the Jerusalem Church, and the brother of Jesus wrote:
You lust and do not have. You murder and covet and cannot obtain. You fight and war. Yet you do not have because you do not ask. You ask and do not receive, because you ask amiss, that you may spend [it] on your pleasures.
James 4:2-3 NKJV
James says, “You don’t have, because you don’t ask. And when you do ask, you ask for the wrong things.”
James may have been writing to the Jewish believers that had scattered across the known world because of persecution of The Church, but his message rings equally true today. We either don’t make the effort to write out a list of requests to take to God in prayer or the things that we do put on our lists don’t align with God’s purposes for us or with the good things that He has planned for us.
Our worldly passions too often drive our gift request list and our prayers.
In 2 Peter 1:3-11, Peter, a leader in the early Church and aging Disciple of Christ, was imprisoned in Rome awaiting execution when he wrote a final letter of reminder and warning to the churches.
Peter wrote that God has given believers everything needed to live godly lives. He said that God invited us to take part in His “own glory and excellence.” And even more, “He has granted to us His precious and very great promises, so that through them you may become partakers of the divine nature….”
And because of that amazing proclamation, in essence, Peter says, “Put these things on your list! You need these things to grow and enhance the effectiveness of your faith”:
– Virtue, moral excellence, or goodness
– Knowledge, a deeper, more perfect knowledge of what you believe
– Self-control – a mastery of your desires and passions
– Steadfastness, purposeful and deliberate perseverance
– Godliness, reverence, respect, and piety toward God
– Brotherly Affection, brotherly kindness or love, mutual affection
– Love, “agapē” love, charity, affection, good-will
Friends, these are the gifts that truly keep on giving. Peter tells his reader, “If you practice these qualities, you will never fall.”
Peter continues, “if these qualities are yours and are increasing, they keep you from being ineffective or unfruitful in the knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ.”
If you don’t have these qualities or if these qualities aren’t growing in you, Peter said you might as well be blind, because you can’t see what you were. You are blind to all that God has done for you. You cannot see or understand all that He wants to do in you.
Peter finishes by saying that as long as he has breath, he will continue to remind believers to ask for and pursue the good gifts that God has created for them and wants to provide for them so that their welcome in heaven will be glorious.
My days of writing a letter to a make-believe Santa are decades in my past. Today my focus, and I hope yours as well, is asking for the best gifts possible – gifts that have eternal value. Gifts that will draw me closer to my Lord and that can be used to encourage others to seek a deeper relationship with our Heavenly Father.
So, I ask you, my friend, “What’s on your Christmas list this year?”
“Ask, and it will be given to you; seek, and you will find; knock, and it will be opened to you. For everyone who asks receives, and the one who seeks finds, and to the one who knocks it will be opened.”
Matthew 7:7-8 ESV
“And this is the confidence that we have toward Him, that if we ask anything according to His will, He hears us.”
1 John 5:14 ESV