Read: 1 Thessalonians 5:16-18

Would you like to get to the end of Christmas Day at the end of the week and be able to honestly say you had a merry Christmas this year? What about if you stayed up all night Christmas Eve putting toys together? What about if you know you’ll have to wait in line on the 26th to exchange half the presents you got? What about if you know who ends up being a total pain at Christmas dinner? Would you still like to say you had a merry Christmas?

We will never have the merry Christmas God wants us to enjoy if we base our happiness on having perfect circumstances. He must raise us up above our circumstances and teach us to base our Christmas joy on His Son’s birth, no matter what circumstances surround us on December 25.

That’s why we have to take time to stop and go back to the first Christmas. God’s Son was born into this imperfect world to share our difficult and painful circumstances. Even the circumstances of His birth were pitiful, lying in a feeding trough in an animal shelter. Throughout His life He was misunderstood, mistreated, oppressed, mocked and ridiculed. He even ended up being nailed to a cross.

Terrible circumstances, indeed, but by His sacrifice and death He restored our broken relationship with God our Father and made it possible for us to share eternal life in a perfect world. When we base our Christmas joy on the Christ Child’s life, death and resurrection-along with His promise to return and take us to our eternal home-then we’ll find joy-not just this Christmas, but every day forever!