Happy Birthday Jesus

It was another early morning with a cup of coffee in hand. I opened my laptop because I was curious to see where the search for “Happy Birthday Jesus” would take me? To my delight, I discovered that there’s a song with that very title on YouTube. For those of you who may be thinking I’m a little behind the eight ball, as in, who doesn’t know about this song, oh well. I listened to the song and the sweet voice of a little girl stopped me in my holiday tracks.

With all the merriment of the season, the shopping, the eating, the driving from store to store and the online cyber deals, it takes every ounce of determination to keep it all about Jesus!

There are so many gifts we seem to have to buy or make and never have enough time or money.  Of course you can’t just get any gift; it has to be the right gift for the right person, you know, Martha Stewart type gift.  That in itself wears me out.

Then there are those cookies to bake and of course eat. Now that wouldn’t be too hard to accomplish with joy, except when you burn over half of the cookies you have baked. Not to mention that diet the doctor told you to go on right before thanksgiving, so every bite of cookie makes you feel guilty.

Then there are those once a year, keep in touch with friends and family cards. How about Christmas activities? Sometimes I wonder why all the fun things have to happen between Thanksgiving and New Years.

It seems this season can bring on so easily “tis the season to be hurried” instead of, “tis the season to be jolly.” This is probably because everything seems to be on high speed, overdone, and too much this and too much that.

How can we make “Happy Birthday Jesus” a true offering of worship when from the time we wake up to the time our heads hit our “my pillow” we have busied ourselves right into the New Year?  

We can sing the Christmas songs, we can send out those “Jesus is the reason for the season” cards, we can cook up a storm for our family, friends and neighbors, and so on, and all these things are good to do.

Yet, the first and foremost thing Jesus Christ commands us to do is love God. In other words – “be” not “do” in a love relationship with God. Mark 12:28-30 says,

And one of the scribes came and heard them arguing, and recognizing that He had answered them well, asked Him (Jesus), “What commandment is the foremost of all?” Jesus answered, “The foremost is, ‘Hear, O Israel! The Lord our God is one Lord; and you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind, and with all your strength.’”

What these verses are saying is, our love for God needs to saturate our personality, emotions and will, and fill our thoughts, words and actions.  Our whole life from the inside out, should shout love for God.  If loving God is our most important passion we will be filled with the Holy Spirit, and the joys and trials of Christmas (of life) will be done in and for our Lord Jesus.

So ladies, this Christmas season let’s make loving God our first priority! Stop, drop and sit at His feet before we start another day. This will enable us to make Jesus the reason for every gift given, every cookie baked and eaten, every card written and sent, every activity gone to or not, and of course for every relationship.

Happy Birthday Jesus may sound too simple for our sophisticated minds, but I can only imagine what it must mean to Him, when in child like faith it is truly from a heart of love!