Once again Christmas is just around the corner. A barrage of toy commercials during children's television shows in the months leading up to Christmas and peer pressure from friends who always seem to have the latest and greatest gadgets and toys. Sometimes Christmas for children is all about what will be under the Christmas tree...lost in materialism.
But what do our children really know about Christmas? Many know it was when Christ was born but how does that relate to them and their lives today?
“While [Jesus] was still talking to the multitudes, behold, His mother and brothers stood outside, seeking to speak with Him. Then one said to Him, ‘Look, Your mother and Your brothers are standing outside, seeking to speak with You.’ But He answered and said to the one who told Him, ‘Who is My mother and who are My brothers?’ And He stretched out His hand toward His disciples and said, ‘Here are My mother and My brothers! For whoever does the will of My Father in heaven is My brother and sister and mother’” (Matthew 12:46-50 NKJV).
God delights to disclose Himself to all who seek Him. Knowing the Lord personally and enjoying His greatness is the highest privilege of every Christian! The Bible is the one inspired place to find out about God—His personality, His attributes, His Names, and His character. A child’s basic outlook and attitude toward life is shaped by the way he or she pictures God.
While Christmas is lovely time to chill out and reunite with our family members we should keep in mind that for many children in orphanages, in hospitals and homes for the elderly. It is a very lonely and often depressing time of year. Imagine what Christmas is like for a widow who has no family to visit her and who lives in an old peoples home? What is Christmas like for children in our general hospitals with leukemia whose only wish for Christmas is that their mothers would stop crying. Imagine what Christmas is like for the man whose family have abandoned him and he has been involved in an accident, bound to a hospital bed, lonely, regretful. Imagine what Christmas is like for the refugees who are from war-torn Countries like Democratic Republic of Congo who have survived years of civil war but whose loved ones have either been brutally killed or displaced and beg along our streets and highways.
I don't want to imagine I want to hug that child in the hospital and give him a little present; I want to share the love of God with an old widow and listen to all her stories as she reminisces of the life in the 1960s. They are everywhere, we may choose to label them as "less fortunate" but honestly they are our brothers and sisters because God created them all and Jesus died for their sins too.
While our children, especially teenagers, are fortunate to have us and internet connection, new clothes to wear, presents and lots of fun and games to look forward to this, Christmas many are not so fortunate. By visiting these people with our children and sharing what little we have with them, we are bringing them into a selfless zone of true discipleship where they can emulate Christ, thereby teaching them the true meaning of Christmas; LOVE. Gods unending, sacrificial love that extends to all.
Ijeoma Olujekun.
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