Christmas in July
“For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten son, that whoever believes in Him shall not perish, but have everlasting life.” John 3:16
Everlasting. According to dictionary.com everlasting means: forever, eternal, or continuing for an indefinitely long time. That’s what God has arranged for us- everlasting life with Him! Wow!
And to accomplish that, He sent His son, Jesus, down to earth to be born as a baby so that when He grew that He could die for us. And that’s what we celebrate on Christmas, right? That Jesus was born as our ultimate gift!
You know what is cool though? That gift never goes away! No matter how much we sin, or how terrible we think we have been, once we believe in the gift of Jesus, we will always be able to celebrate it. Even after Jesus died, He rose again so that He could be with us forever! This gift never breaks, it never gets old, you never grow out of it, it never goes away. For the rest of forever, Jesus will be with us. For an indefinitely long time. Everlasting.
I have a great friend who gets personally offended when people celebrate holidays outside of their time. Not just Christmas, any holiday. Thanksgiving cannot be celebrated before Halloween, and Christmas must be left until after Thanksgiving. He’s so serious about it, that we’ve kind of turned it into a joke.
Now, every year, we do something that makes him celebrate Christmas before Thanksgiving. One year, I mailed him a Christmas card hidden in a Thanksgiving card. One year, we hung a wreath on his door while he was not at home. One year, we decorated our apartment and then invited him over for a “tailgate.” I have years worth of ideas of what we can do to him, and every year it is so much fun! Why not celebrate Christmas all the time?
The Christmas season is a wonderful time to celebrate Jesus’ birth, but the truth of it is, we can celebrate Jesus and His gift to us every single day. If you want to celebrate Christmas in July- do it! March- Go for it! September- Why not? I heard the song “Day after Christmas” by Matthew West recently and thought it was so fitting. The chorus says:
Happy day after Christmas / And merry rest of the year / Even when Christmas is over / The light of the world is still here /
The true gift of Christmas is that Jesus was born so that we could spend every day with Him forever. So that He could be the light of the world for eternity. So that we could have something to celebrate for an indefinitely long time. Everlasting.