Telling the Truth for Women

Jill Briscoe: I love the Christmas meeting when we come together to review something we know a lot about. It's always a bit of a challenge to whoever is taking a Christmas message to say what I can light up about Christmas. I've often said to you that truth is like a diamond with many facets. I always ask God to help me by the Holy Spirit to turn the diamond and throw light on a facet of the same truth, the same diamond, that people have never seen before. I don't know whether that will be so today or not.

I want to talk about putting the spotlight on Christ. I brought a spotlight along with me. I brought mine, but it didn't have a battery in it, so that wasn't much good. I went down to the workmen down here and borrowed theirs. It doesn't have a knob, but I think I can get it to work. Keeping the spotlight on Christ.

As soon as Thanksgiving is over, and this to me is pretty depressing, our thoughts turn toward Christmas. In fact, before Thanksgiving is even here, everything is Christmas. I'm getting muddled up and I've thought that we haven't had Thanksgiving yet. Certainly once Thanksgiving is over, our thoughts turn towards Christmas.

The most usual questions I'm asked are, are you getting ready for Christmas? Are you going home for the holidays? So, who's coming to your house? If you think about it, those are the questions you ask and those are the questions people ask you. Are you getting ready for Christmas? Who's going home for the holidays? Are you going home for the holidays? Who's coming to your house?

I was writing a piece of Christmas something for a magazine, and this is all true. I asked a young, energetic mother of four if she was getting ready for Christmas and was rather taken aback to hear her vehement but honest reply. "I hate Christmas." This was from a Bible-believing, card-carrying, born-again Christian mom with an intact family, and she meant it. "I hate Christmas."

Finding myself on a college campus, I asked a senior student, "Are you going home for the holidays?" "Yes, I think so," she said hesitantly, "But I don't want to." In sudden, teary explanation, she said her parents divorced during this last semester, "So who am I expected to spend the holiday with?" Her voice trailed away.

I was sure I'd be on safer ground with some friends of mine who had a large extended family. I was at a church coffee with them and inquired brightly, "So what's ahead for you? Who's coming to your house?" "Christmas is coming and so are the relatives," she replied grimly. I didn't press her. I just felt sad. I hope Jesus hadn't been listening. I could imagine Him saying, "Well, if that's what you feel about My birthday, why bother coming to My party?"

If we all stop and think about it, this isn't about Jesus or His party. It's about us. It's about our lives and our relationships. It's about who comes first and which relationship matters most. For some, Christmas throws us together with people we'd rather not be with, demanding a relational response we're not prepared to give.

Let me say that again. For some, Christmas throws us together with people we'd rather not be with, demanding a relational response we're not prepared to give. It highlights our onliness, making us feel on the outside looking in rather than on the inside looking out. For others, there's a terrible dread of the space that ought not to be, the space that ought to be filled with a living, breathing loved one that was called mom, dad, spouse, or even child, who won't be there for the very first time in many Christmas's together.

No wonder there's a mixture of emotions as I ask my Christmas questions. Yet, if we could only prepare for Christ's coming as thoroughly as we prepare for the happenings of the season, what a difference it would make. Preparing for Christ's coming into our Christmas, intervening, access. You have to give Him access. A human being has the power to incarnate the Christ wherever you are. He's living in you. What an incredible thing to give Him access into your Christmas this year. What a difference that would make.

How do we do this? How do we get ready for Christ to come this Christmas and not Christmas to come without Christ? I want to alert you to a few verses, very familiar, from Luke Chapter 1. The angel has just come to Mary and he's told her she's going to bear the Messiah. She says, "How will this be," in verse 34 of Luke 1, "since I am a virgin?" The angel answers, "The Holy Spirit will come upon you. The power of the Most High will overshadow you. The Holy One that will be born of you will be called the Son of God."

Then he tells Mary about Elizabeth. I don't know if you've ever wondered about this. Why did he do this? "Even your Elizabeth, your relative, is going to have a child in her old age." I think he told her because nothing is impossible with God. He didn't just say to Mary, "Of course the Holy Spirit can do this. He can impart the Godhead to your body. God can do everything." He didn't try to convince her. He just pointed to someone she knew in her life who was well past childbearing and said she's going to have a baby. Look at Elizabeth and then you'll realize nothing is impossible with God. If God could bring life to a womb long dead, He can bring life to your womb that is alive and throbbing and ready to bear children. Nothing is impossible with God.

"I'm the Lord's servant," Mary answers. At that time, Mary got ready and hurried to a town in the hill country of Judea. It says in other translations that she immediately hurried. It doesn't mean she hurried on the way there. It meant she hurried to get ready. The first thing she wanted to do was go see Elizabeth because she realized that Elizabeth would encourage her. Elizabeth would be her support. Elizabeth was in on this great thing that was happening. Elizabeth's baby and her baby were somehow interconnected. They were going to have a part in presenting the Savior of the world to the world.

The first thing she did was she didn't turn to her mom and she didn't turn to her dad. She didn't turn to her sisters. She didn't turn to her brothers. She said, "I'm going to see Elizabeth." Off she went to the hill country, in the middle of the hills, this little tiny home of Zechariah and Elizabeth. She gets there and you know what happened. She sings her song. As soon as she greets Elizabeth, the babe inside Elizabeth leaps with joy. Those of us that have had children know when a child does that inside you. What a leap that must have been. Elizabeth was filled with the Holy Spirit at the same time. This was no child having a little play inside a woman's body. This was a recognition by a six-month fetus of a conception that had taken place that the fetus recognized. Quite an argument against abortion, I would think.

This was happening before either of those births happened. Both filled with the Holy Spirit, sang their songs of praises and had a Christmas celebration in advance. Then there's a little verse, and this is my text, verse 56: "Mary stayed with Elizabeth for about three months and then returned home." Mary stayed with Elizabeth for three months and then returned home.

As we think about that, three months before Christmas, Mary was staying with her cousin Elizabeth. Imagine Elizabeth asking Mary, "Are you going home for Christmas?" Imagine Mary's thoughts. Though considerably younger than that senior I asked the same question to on that campus, I can imagine her mind flying to home, to her mother, to her father, to her sisters, and to her brothers. I can imagine her mind flying to the divorce, not her parents' divorce, her own.

I can imagine her saying, "I don't want to go home for Christmas. I want to stay here. These are the only people on Earth as far as I can see who are ever going to believe what's happened to me, my cousin Elizabeth, because God has let Zechariah and Elizabeth in on this. I feel safe here. I feel secure here. They understand me. I don't want to go home for Christmas."

Yet, incredibly, this text says she stayed with Elizabeth for about three months, three months before Elizabeth's baby was going to be born to help the old lady in the last probably difficult months of that incredible, miraculous pregnancy that Elizabeth was experiencing. She was getting everything ready, doing everything she could for Elizabeth. Then just before John was born, she said, "I've got to go home. I've got to go home."

I can imagine those two old people with their arms around that beautiful young girl, now showing, and praying with her. What I would give to hear that prayer. What I would give to hear, of course Elizabeth did all the talking because Zechariah was still dumb. I can imagine that he was giving signs and smiling and hugging and pointing. It must have been very difficult for him and writing furiously on the slate. Here they were caught up in this drama, this scandal as somebody said of God becoming a baby. In a sense, it was a scandal that God was willing to submit to, that God would become a human. It's a scandal from a divine point of view. Yet, here they were caught up in this divine scandal on our behalf.

So she goes home, six months pregnant, out of wedlock, in a culture in her day that was a crime worthy of stoning. It says in the book of Leviticus that if a young girl still living with her parents was found to have played the fool and be found to be pregnant before she got married, even whether she was engaged to be married or not, she was to be stoned to death. This would be Mary's case. She would not be stoned to death in her culture because she had committed adultery. She wasn't yet formally married to Joseph, although counted to be so. She would have been stoned to death if she'd lived in Leviticus time because she was a young girl still in her parents' house.

There's a passage in the book of Leviticus that says if this child or young girl is found in this case, then she must be put to death. So would you want to go home at Christmas, even though they wouldn't be doing that stoning in this particular time? There would be plenty of people throwing stones, verbal ones, for the rest of her life.

Why did she go home? Why didn't she just stay there? I think she went home because she was putting Christ first. She was first focused on Him. She believed she needed to go home. She had to be there. She had to go back and face Joseph. She had no idea what was going to happen there. She could only imagine. At that point, quite rightly, Joseph was thinking about divorcing her, trying to figure out how to do it so he wouldn't make a public disgrace of her. There were two ways you could divorce someone in the Old Testament. You could do it privately in front of two priests or you could do it publicly in the marketplace and finish her off for good. Joseph didn't want to do that. He didn't want to divorce her publicly. He wanted to divorce her privately, take her to the temple and make that happen before the priests.

Christ in the center, Christ in the heart. How do we do that? That's where it all begins. It was because she was intent on focusing the world's attention on Christ, keeping the spotlight on Christ, that she went home.

I was at my daughter's church on Sunday and it was great fun. I was babysitting for two days and two nights with three little boys. I had to get them ready and take them to church. It's sort of different in somebody else's church than yours. It took quite a while, but we eventually all arrived. It was wonderful. I got the kids off to Sunday School and I went into the adult Sunday School and sat there and listened.

An old man got up and told a joke. He said, "My doctor's just told me this and it's a real joke and it really happened." He said there was a little girl of about four or five who went to the doctor and she was a little scared, so he was trying to put her at ease. First of all, he looked in her ear and said, "Is Big Bird in there?" She just looked at him, no response. Then he got her to open her mouth and looked in there and he said, "Oh, is Cookie Monster in there?" No response, just stared back at him, stayed quite still. Then he got his stethoscope out and he started going around her heart and he said, "Oh, is Barney in there?" She came to life and she said, "No, Jesus is in there and Barney's on my underpants."

She knew who was in her heart. Jesus is in there. Barney's on my underpants. What's sad is this Christmas Barney will be in many children's hearts. Amazing. I look around the stores and see what's being sold and I see the place that's given to Mickey Mouse and Donald Duck and Barney. I look long and hard to see the symbols I would like to see. It's an incredible thing to put Him first, to keep the spotlight on Jesus.

How will you know? If when the choices come you put Him first, you'll know you've put Him first. In Luke 14, there is an amazing passage of scripture and we're not going to read it all. Jesus, grown and ministering, is traveling around with a crowd and He addresses them on the subject of putting Him first, on the subject of discipleship.

This is what He says: "If anyone comes to Me and does not hate his father, mother, wife and children, his brothers and sisters, yes, even his own life, he cannot be My disciple." This has been a passage that people usually avoid. It's a sort of awkward thing. Why would Jesus say if you want to be My disciple you've got to hate your father and mother and wife and children? Obviously you have to look into this a little bit to figure out what He means.

Let me read it to you in one or two other translations. He's talking about the principle of abandonment, the principle of relinquishment. Here's another translation: "Anyone that comes to Me but refuses to let go of his father, mother, spouse, brother, sisters, yes, and his own life, cannot be My disciple." In the same way, any of you that don't give up everything can't be My disciple.

Another person says, simply put, "If you're not willing to take what is dearest to you, whether plans or people, and kiss it goodbye, you can't be My disciple." Simply put, if you're not willing to take what is dearest to you, whether plans or people, and kiss it goodbye, you cannot be My disciple. This is a very controversial passage of scripture.

Living Bible: "If you want to be My follower, you must love Me more." Now we're getting to it. This is a comparison term. Actually, it's a Middle Eastern expression, a comparative term. You've got to love Me more than you love people. It isn't that you mustn't love. It's that the love you have for God must be so much more than the love you have for people that the love you have for people appears to be hate. That's how much bigger your love for God must appear and must be.

So it isn't that He's saying hate your mother and father and husband and wife and all the rest. No, He's told us to love them in other places. He's told us to love ourselves in other places. What He's saying is, compare. Does your love appear to others because it really is so much greater for Me than it is for the people that are very closest to you? Unless you can work in your Christianity to the point of abandonment and commitment and realization of living out that supreme love to Christ above all other loves, you cannot be My disciple.

Amplified: "If anyone comes to Me and does not hate his own father and mother, that is in the sense of indifference to or relative disregard for them in comparison with his attitude toward God, and likewise his wife and children, brothers and sisters, yes, and even his own life also, he cannot be My disciple." So it's when the choice comes, it will show whether you do.

Jesus said, "If you love Me, keep My commandments." To keep His commandments means to put His interests first. I remember one of my children, who shall be nameless, at thirteen or fourteen falling for the very first time for somebody of the opposite sex. This particular child said to me after a little while in the flush of first love, and how sharp that is, we forget in our old age, but if you can try and remember how sharp that first love is. To watch your own children go through that is an agony, really, because you can't help them. They're helpless in the wave of this incredible thing that's happened to them. They don't want to feel like that, but that's how it is. You can't mend it. You can't kiss it better. You can't make it feel less.

I remember this particular child of mine saying, "I don't think I'll ever be able to get married, mom." I said, "Why not?" They said to me, "Because of this intensity of feeling. I can't think about God. I can't think about what I'm doing. I can't sit in church. I can't think about the sermon. If that happens to me at this age in this relationship, then I can't imagine what love must be like when you fall in love and get married. Then I would be putting that before God. So maybe I'll never be able to get married because I don't love God more than I love people."

Well, I sort of said one or two what I thought were relevant stuff, but it didn't seem to make any difference. I didn't really know what to say to tell you the truth. I thought, how can I help this child? Then a little later on, this child had an opportunity to go away with the family of the person that they were attached to. But they were also given a chance, in the same breath almost, of going away for the summer on short-term mission. That particular child came to me and I said, "What you're going to do?" The child said, "Well, I'm going on short-term mission, mom," without a hesitation. I said, "Don't you want to go with this family?" "Well, of course." I said, "Hey, you love God more than you love this person." "How do you know, mom?" "Because when the choice came, you put God's interests first."

Yes, your eros, your feeling, the love part of feeling wants to do this because of this person. But you know what's right. If you love Me, keep My commandments. You know what you should be doing this summer with your time. There was this huge relief on the face of that particular child. Oh, I get it. Putting Jesus first doesn't mean that you want to do what Jesus wants you to do always, right? Right, but you do it anyway.

Do you think Mary wanted to go home? Do you think Mary wanted to bear the Messiah when she knew that her whole life was going to be wrecked? Thank you, Angel. You've just come and told me that you're going to wreck the whole of my life. It wasn't a want. It was a submission. Be it unto me according to your word. She loved God. It wasn't that she felt love for God specifically. I don't know what she felt. But I know what she did. She went home. She went home to Joseph. She was willing for her actions to almost look like hate to the rest of her family because she put Jesus first.

It must have looked like hate for Joseph. It must have looked like hate for a mom and hate for her father to go against local customs like that woman did. Incredible. To neglect social family customs pertaining to the family loyalties would probably have been interpreted as hate, says a commentator on this particular verse.

So Jesus isn't contravening His commandment. He's saying discipleship requires a conscious advance commitment made with a realistic estimate of ultimate personal cost. Let me say that again. Discipleship requires a conscious advance commitment made with a realistic estimate of ultimate personal cost. Christian discipleship isn't some theoretical, abstract ideal, but hard reality.

I remember when I was getting this ready, just in my prayer diary, simply writing, "I signed up for this." Mary probably wrote the same. "I signed up for this." You signed up for this. I don't know if you remember, but you signed up for this. For what? When the choice comes, keeping the spotlight on Christ, putting Him first even before your family.

As I was getting this message ready, I was thinking what a strange message. They're going to be thrilled to come and hear a message like this. Yet I thought of this verse. She put Christ first before her family, before Joseph. I was thinking that some things could happen at our family gatherings this holiday season that would appear as shocking to them in another way as getting pregnant out of wedlock. Something might happen when we're all together that might appear to our family as hate. They might not understand. It might appear as a hateful action. But Christ has to come. We signed up for this.

It's never over. Christ always has to come before our own personal family, and especially at Christmas. This is the thing that gets to me. What better season than to put Christ before your family? Mary did, Christmas.

Jesus put God first. I remember just about four or five months ago, Stuart came home saying we have to do our diary. This is very depressing. We have to sign it all up and give it all away and fill it all up. I said, "Well, can you tell them to bring a wheelchair to the airplane?" I'm looking at these things thinking, well it used to be five years ahead of us. We've gone down to two years for obvious reasons now. But we're looking at this two years ahead of us. He said, "Oh by the way, you know I'm going to Australia between Christmas and New Year this year." I said, "Yeah." He said, "I've tried everything I can but there's nothing I can do. We lose a day."

He's going to this big convention that they always have over Christmas. That's the middle of their summer in Australia, so they have their biggest conventions over the Christmas period. He said, "I'll have to leave on Christmas Day." A little twinge came into my heart. Then I thought, I signed up for this. I signed up for this. Stuart signed up for this. Our family signed up for this. Because it can't be done any other way, the choice is here and of course there's no option.

As people have become aware that he leaves in the middle of Christmas Day, they've said, "You mean Stuart leaves Christmas Day? He won't be home at Christmas?" I've been able to reply, "Well, Jesus wasn't home on Christmas Day." He left home. He wasn't home for thirty-three Christmas Days. Why? Because He put us before His own family in heaven.

Mary wasn't home for Christmas even though she went home intending to be home for Christmas. Was she? She was in a stable. She had no intention of bringing Jesus to birth in a stable. She got everything prepared in Nazareth, clean, beautiful preparations. Where was she? She wasn't home for Christmas.

Then you come to the joy bit. This is something we can do for Him. He left home for our sake. We can leave home for His. So we signed up for this. What you need to do is commit it to prayer. It's essential to keep your focus. If you're going to get ready for Christ to come into your situation, to give Him access, you've got to pray about it.

Some of you say, "Jill, I wouldn't even know how to start." Well, you've got to make time. "I don't have time." Five minutes a day from now till Christmas to pray about what could happen will stop you praying five minutes a day after Christmas about what did happen. Try it. Five minutes a day from now till then. You have no idea until you get to heaven what difference that might make.

Now if you don't know what to pray, you've got help because you have an advocate with the Father. He is the one who keeps the spotlight on Jesus. It just excites me. What is the Holy Spirit praying? He is praying we'll keep the focus, the spotlight on Jesus. That's what He's praying because that's what His job is.

True prayer is God the Holy Spirit talking to God the Father in the name of God the Son, and the believer's heart is the prayer room. Let me say that again. True prayer is God the Holy Spirit talking to God the Father in the name of God the Son, and the believer's heart is the prayer room. That's why Romans 8:26 and 27 says if we don't know how and what to pray, it doesn't matter. He does our praying for us. The Holy Spirit makes intercession and He, God, knows what the intentions of the Spirit are.

The neat thing about all this is He's praying. What is He praying? That we'll keep the focus on Christ. That's what God the Spirit is praying to God the Father about God the Son internally in us. Now you are not even aware that's going on. But when you get down your knees to pray and you open yourself up to the Spirit of prayer, and the Holy Spirit is the Spirit of prayer, and say, "Give me Your thoughts, Holy Spirit of prayer," you will find yourself praying in this vein. How can I keep the spotlight on Christ because that's what His intention is? At this point, He is praying about your Christmas for you that you'll be able to do that.

Let me just read this to you because Catherine Marshall has a marvelous thought that lights this thought up. Oswald Sanders says the Holy Spirit isn't our advocate but rather Christ's. The Son is our advocate with the Father. But the Holy Spirit is Christ's advocate. He's the one that keeps Christ in the spotlight. He doesn't talk about Himself. He lights up Jesus.

Catherine Marshall says Christ is in the spotlight that is held by the Holy Spirit, the Helper. Christ is in the spotlight. It's just as if I'm the Holy Spirit and I'm holding the spotlight on Christ. Therefore, it follows the Holy Spirit will involve us in His work of looking after Jesus Christ's interests, focusing the world's attention on Him. "When the Holy Spirit comes," says Jesus, "He's going to convict of sin and righteousness and judgment to come and present Jesus and say, 'Here's your Savior. He's going to save you from all these things.'"

The Holy Spirit will help us. He'll give us ideas. He'll help us to know how to do that. How can we look after His interests this Christmas? Well, we can put a roof over someone's head. We can put a meal in someone's stomach. We can put clothes on someone's back. That's what everybody did for Jesus. They put a roof over His head, the innkeeper did that. They put a meal in His stomach, Mary did that. They put clothes on someone's back, she wrapped Him up. So you put Him first and then you wrap Him up. You do something practical this Christmas. How do you put Him first? That's what you do.

I'm busy deciding what I can do on Christmas Day because I've time, but I'm also finding out that they don't need me at the Rescue Mission to serve food on Christmas Day. But they do need me three or four days before when I don't have time. But it's only occurred to me that's great. This is a proof of what I'm saying to you. Will I put other things aside to go and put a roof over someone's head, put a meal in someone's stomach, put clothes on someone's back this Christmas? This is the time to do that. That's what they did for Jesus.

So we put Him first. We do something practical and we share Christ with our world. We let Him be seen. We let Him be seen. Everybody came into the stable and there was Jesus. God is going to bring you people this Christmas and this is the exciting bit because you're going to be focusing, you're going to be putting Him first.

How can you do that practically? Just three simple thoughts. Keep the stable simple. Keep the stable simple. It was simple. Well, tidy it up. You know, you need to tidy it up. I'm sure Joseph did his best sweeping a little bit of straw out of the way and tidying it up. But just keep it simple.

That has been such a thought for me this Christmas. Do you want everyone to come into your house and say, "Oh, what a super stable, beautiful"? Is that what they're going to say? Or do you want them to come into your house and say, "Oh, what a super Savior"? The way you decorate your home will show who you put first.

I have been in Christian homes and I haven't been able to find Jesus in one decoration. Now I don't mean hang religious symbols all over your Christmas tree. But it would be nice to have something on the Christmas tree for the children, wouldn't it? It's an incredible thing how if we keep the stable simple, tidy it up, clean it out, but don't let it distract from the Savior and have something prominent.

My crèche is there as people come in the door. That's the first thing somebody sees. Yes, of course I have the other pretty things in our beautiful home to make it as beautiful as I can. But I'm asking myself those questions. Keep it simple. How much money do we spend on all this stuff when I could be perhaps putting a roof over somebody's head or adding the money to the Thanksgiving offering or something like that this Christmas?

Keep the stable simple. Secondly, keep the door open. Treat everyone that comes in through your door as one sent by God. That God has sent to see Jesus in your life. If you want to share Christ, if you want to give Him access into your home, then look at everybody in that light. That will surely help. Don't treat strangers as intruders and don't treat relatives as strangers. Don't treat strangers as intruders and don't treat relatives as strangers but as invited guests and remember it's His bash. Just put that in your Bible or something. It's His bash, right? Whose bash is it? Well, if we look at what we're doing and what we're planning and where we're going I would say it isn't His bash.

But it is His bash and we need to just keep that in mind and everybody that comes into our door, expectingly and unexpectedly, try and do that. I think I've told this story, but it was another Christmas Day when we first got here, second Christmas we ever had here and Stuart comes into the kitchen tying his tie and all dressed up and my hair's everywhere and I'm cooking. We had an open plan house then, so the smell of the turkey was everywhere and the kids were going crazy and the dog was tearing up all the paper. It was just a happy Christmas morning. I look at my husband and say, "Where are you going? It's Christmas Day morning." He said, "Oh, didn't I tell you?" I said, "No. What didn't you tell me?" He said, "Oh, I'm so sorry, Jill. I thought I'd told you, but we're having a wedding here in about half an hour."

Well, I didn't fortunately have time to get mad. "A wedding here?" I said, waving my spatula with grease on. "Here, in half an hour?" So I corralled the kids and I said, "We're going to have a wedding." "A wedding? A wedding? What you mean, mom?" "Here. Here? Yes, here. Pete go and be the usher. You get ready. Judy, you're going to have to help the bride get ready in your room. Go tidy it up." Get all this stuff in a cupboard and lock up the dog.

Sure enough, in one hour this couple whose parents were at loggerheads, it was what we call a mixed marriage, Catholic and Lutheran, at Milwaukee and unfortunately it had caused huge trauma. The parents, both parents had refused to come to this wedding. So Stuart said, "You come to our home and we'll have the wedding here, help these kids." So we were going to have the wedding. Well, that was the story behind it which I hadn't even had time to hear.

I didn't even know the parents were at loggerheads with each other, but the bride and groom arrived and we got ready. David was putting the little chairs and making little things in the living room and we're all involved and it was just really great. Suddenly there's a ring at the bell and both sets of parents arrived in tears with their backs to each other. I looked out and could see them there, so I sent Pete to open the door. He was about eight at the time and he opened the door and says, "Hello, come in." He didn't know who they were, but people come to our door all the time. So they came in and David put them in the chairs and we all sat there and had the wedding. It was absolutely wonderful. There was reconciliation, there was love, there was everything that Christmas should be about. What a day to get married.

That is not the norm in our house, but it does happen every so often. What a wonderful thing when you can treat everybody that comes through your door as somebody that God has sent, especially at Christmas, that you can give access to what God wants to say and what God wants to do.

I was just thinking how the Holy Spirit is getting people ready. I'm sort of excited. I think of the songs they sing, the carols. There's all sorts of things you can do when you're shopping. I've been doing it this year. I thought there's one thing I can do. Every time I hear a tape of carols in the background, without being mixed in with Rudolph, I mean just straight worship or carols, I go up and I ask to see the manager. I say, "Where's the manager?" She's usually wandering around. I go up to her and I say, "Thank you for that music. That is so neat to come and shop in your store and hear Christmas carols about Christ." Just thank you. It's just a little thing.

But if you're focused on Christ, if you're thinking how can we use the Christmas season to take the opportunity that you'll never have any other time of the year to help keep the spotlight on Jesus? Just keep the spotlight on Him. It's a wonderful, wonderful thing.

Even the songs, the Christmas carols, you have no idea how the Holy Spirit is preparing a choir in church even to alert somebody to something. When I was a student, we had a hommet in this beautiful college in Cambridge, hundreds of years old, the building. I was a freshman and I had a sister, big sister, that looked after me. It was all girls' college. There was a tradition that was a secret that Christmas Eve night, the big sister would come and knock on the door and there'd be a line of girls just in their nightclothes. In those days we wore these long, English, Elizabethan flannel nightgowns.

Just in our nightgowns they'd give us a candle, knock on our door and we'd wake up at two in the morning and they'd give us a candle and we'd join the line. They went knocking on all the doors until everybody in that college, probably about 800 girls, were walking around the long, gorgeous old oak corridors in and out, singing Christmas carols.

Now, I was not a believer. I didn't know anything. Yet it was "O Little Town of Bethlehem" that I remember holding my candle, walking along the corridor, coming to that verse, "How silently, how silently the wondrous gift is given. So God imparts to human hearts the blessings of His heaven. We do not hear His coming, but in this world of sin, where meek souls will receive Him still, the dear Christ enters in." I remember stopping singing but still going down the corridor with my candle thinking, what's that mean? What does that mean? Whatever does that mean? I didn't sing any more carols. I just kept thinking "the dear Christ enters in." What does that mean?

The angels are busy this Christmas alerting people through a song, through a smile, through the way your house is decorated, through what you spend your money on, through what you do with your time at Christmas, through what you teach your children. The Holy Spirit's at work. So I would just say keep the spotlight on Jesus. Pray with me if you would. Let me pray a prayer.

Light up the Savior, Lord. Show Him to my hurried world. Make it stop long enough to see God in Christ come to save. Show Him off, Father. Show Him to my friends and relatives, my neighbors down the street, my colleagues in the marketplace of life, those who think that all there is to Christmas is time off football, a drink, and a good time. Show Him off, Holy Spirit. Do Your holy work. Put Jesus in the spotlight in the minds of men and keep us, those who say You matter, focused too, focused on Your Son of sorrow and of joy.

May there be no mistake about whom we love and whom we serve. Help us like Mary to squirrel away Christmas nuggets of truth and treasure them in our heart for the dark winters of ourselves. Light up the rooms of our homes with Your hereness. Illuminate the dreariness of our minds with Your nearness. Light up our hearts and souls with Your dearness. Help us in these tinsel times to keep the stable simple, to keep the door open for the strangers, the shepherds, and the kings You'll surely send our way because You can trust us. Father, You can trust us to keep Your Jesus in the spotlight. I love You, Your child, sign your name and remember you signed up for this. Amen.