I decided since I do not sing and not very musical, we would say it all together. The words were just too good for me to skip over.
I'll Give God Me This Christmas: I'll give God me this Christmas, it's the best gift I can give. I'll give God me this Christmas, and for Him I will live. I'll give God me this Christmas from my head down to my toes. I'll give God me this Christmas, that's what He wants the most.
"But Jesus said unto Him, "Follow me, and let the dead bury the dead." Matthew 8:22 (KJV)
This tells me that we have to FOLLOW JESUS! We have to allow Him to REVEAL His plan to us. We cannot walk through life getting GOOD IDEAS through blogs, facebook, twitter, our girlfriends. Our thoughts and ideas should come FROM the Lord.
It is a pretty strong statement to say: "let the dead bury the dead." Here Jesus was saying MY plan is more important than yours. It's ALL. ABOUT. ME. I am not trying to make light of someone passing away. My grandfather passed away last November and rest assured I was everywhere the family was. But I think Jesus is trying to make us realize that we cannot let LIFE get in the way of His plan.
I think too many times we ALLOW people to pull on us. We think we have to do this or that because we do not want to let people down. We attempt to do things because we saw others post about it on their blog or facebook. BUT we have to remember that God is top priority. He IS the PRIORITY! What really matters is are we following Jesus OR are we too concerned with what others will think?
Now what with my children?
We have used this song as a conversation starter with the kids at church and in our home. We have talked about what it means to give God ourselves. How do we give Him us? What does that look like?
1. Open up YOUR heart and SHARE! That speaks volumes to your children. Let them hear your heart and ASK them what they think. Lead them to Scriptures to shows how Jesus laid down His life for us.
2. Walk it out! As the children discussed this at church, we talked about how it is easy to talk about, but harder to walk it out.
3. Tell them when you see them do what God would want them to do. For example, sharing with their brother or sister, helping someone pick up something they dropped, holding the door for someone. Tell them that God sees them and He is proud of them for following His example of giving up His life.
4. Let your children see your faults and talk with them about how you have failed too. We are sinners saved by grace. We can only get life right when God is at the center. It is HIM working through us, it is not in our own strength!
5. Most importantly pray for your children. Pray and ask God to give you wisdom and how to lead your child toward Him. Pray that God's message reaches the HEART of your child. It's easy to change our behavior aka "behavior modification" for a while but real true change comes when God changes the hearts of our children. Pray that God's Word would reach their HEARTS! Pray for guidance.
I desire for God to have me! I desire to hear His voice LOUD and CLEAR among all the other voices that seem to scream at us. This Christmas we are working on giving Jesus US! That is what He really wants.
How do you plan to give God you? Again, we have to be INTENTIONAL or it will never happen. We have to be INTENTIONAL with our children as we LEAD them to JESUS each. and. EVERY. day! It never stops. We are NEVER off duty when it comes to TRAINING them in the ways of Jesus.
As a new family tradition we are going to write letters to Jesus. Many children write letters to Santa, but we are going to write letters to Jesus. I am not sure of the details yet since it is a new tradition. I would like to keep the letters for us to look at each year. I think it would be a good way to see how God has grown us and changed us through the years. I think that each individual should share if they want their letter to be a private letter between them and Jesus or shared among the group. I will follow up here after we have done this. Of course, the way we do it each year may change. I am not sure.
