Christmas is the love story of a Father and Son saying goodbye to each other in the community of perfect love they inhabited. Then Jesus said hello to our world, bringing God’s love with him in human form so that love could overflow to everyone, everywhere, for all time.

Christmas is a justice story. Our Savior personally lived a life of poverty, exile, and oppression so that not only does he free people from injustice - he also understands them. The Christmas story invites us to join Jesus by coming alongside our impoverished and oppressed brothers and sisters.

Christmas is the story of a one-person invasion and conquest against a sinister enemy entrenched on an entire planet. Bethlehem is the beachhead for God’s campaign to regain the territory lost in the cosmic battle against evil. The birth of a baby is the unlikely beginning of the end of the Great War between the kingdom of love and the kingdom of darkness.

When we fail to notice the giver of goodness in our lives it will rob us of the good life of gratitude. But, when we remember that all good things are because of God we respond to him with thankfulness and the good life of gratitude will overflow into the lives of others.

When we live and love like Jesus, we refuse to make enemies of others or adopt an “us vs. them” mindset. When we opt out of the game of deciding who does and does not deserve love, we no longer fit on either side and will be persecuted as a result. But we rejoice to know that we are moving in the direction of God’s coming kingdom!

Our first instinct is to divide the world into people who are like us and those who aren’t and to protect those differences at any cost. Jesus invites us to live as sons and daughters of God, members of one human family who belong to each other. Together we search for common ground and work for the common good.

Chasing our ‘best life now’ by pursuing fortune, fame, fun, and fullness lures us down a path that leads away from God. When we resist the pull of those empty idols and move toward God’s kingdom instead, our best life is found - now AND forever.

Our world offers continual distractions that overwhelm us and keep us from purity of heart. But when we have a single-minded focus on God and his love, we will notice him at work in and around us.

In a culture of perpetual judgment, we humbly acknowledge the brokenness we have in common with everyone. We give to others the mercy we receive from God and find even more of the mercy we need. What a beautiful way to be human!

The trap of hungering and thirsting after idols leaves us empty and restless. The fullness of life is longing for and chasing after what we can only find in the love of Christ.