Christmas is the Giving

My friend, Cindy, called this morning and said she has nearly finished her Christmas shopping. I am usually an early bird when it comes to gift purchasing, also. This year, however, we are not buying gifts for our family. The family has decided that its Christmas gift to each other is everyone joining each other at our son's vicinity in West Palm Beach, Florida. We have a bit of family there and they have worked it out so that none of us need rent a hotel. That is just a wonderful thing. Now, each of us can go and not feel guilty about spending too much money. Aside from the gas and food, the hotel bills are usually the biggest hunk of vacation expense. I really thank my son and wife, my sister and my niece for moving over for the move-in of the De Vries family. We are looking forward to a good time had by all. Our daughters in particular seem serious about how often they can get all their kids together so that cousins know and love one another. As is in most families, it is the daughers that plan the family activities. On the other hand, Jay has been planning this visit from his family for over a year now and is pretty excited about it. Most of his siblings have not seen his home so he is eager to show them. He and Tasha own a beautiful big home with a pool and a lake in their back yard. Hopefully, the weather will be cooperative and the kids can take advantage of all those amenities.

This early morning post will be added to this afternoon. At this point, I must ready myself for my Bible study at church.

The Beth Moore teaching was awesome this morning. Her subject was the true church, the true body of believers. She exposed the weaknesses of denominationalism. What a minute, don't shut me off. She belongs to a denominational church. But she has her eyes open and sees the way we tend to begin to practice the laws and expectations of men rather than the expectation of God. God is looking for those that believe in Him, that have a heart for Him, that pant after Him as a deer pants for water. Quite honestly, he doesn't care a fig whether you attend church once a week, twice a week or less or more. It isn't with our church attendance he is crediting our account for righteousness. Each brand of church has its own list of rules and/or expectations. The longer I live the less I get excited about following man's list of rules. In our tradition, services are held both morning and evening on Sundays. People that come only on Sunday mornings are considered "oncers" while those that come both services are considered more spiritual. Oh, that isn't in black and white anywhere but those preconcieved judgements are floating around. One young gal had a busy October. She hostessed more people in one month than most folk do in a year. She heard via the grapevine that her lack of Sunday night church attendance was getting attention from a certain group of people. Now do you suppose that kind of guilt laying would encourage one's walk with Christ or cause resentment. I know what it does to me.

If only we as God's children would extent grace in the same way our Savior extends grace. Life would be wonderful and the message of the gospel would spread like a wildfire. I'm going to make an effort to be less critical, less presumptuous, less judgmental. I'm going to realize more accutely that God has His beloved in churches of all brandnames.