One Hundred Envelopes of Hope

Hebrews 11:1

 

The fabric of Christmas is hope.

 

When I was a little boy I was always the first one up on Christmas morning. One time I got up and opened not just my gifts, but everybody’s gifts. Being the youngest of four, as cute as Joey was, he was not very popular that year.

 

My brother is 12 years older than I am. When he was in college and living on peanut butter and jelly sandwiches, he didn’t have much money for himself let alone for his little brother’s Christmas gift. But he was very creative.

 

One Christmas I was up first, as usual. When I came downstairs it was still dark. All I could see was a pile of gifts under and around the tree, but there was also something that caught my eye. It looked like there were stalactites hanging from our living room ceiling.

 

When I turned the lights on, I discovered they weren’t stalactites at all, but several links of envelopes taped together, end to end. Eventually, I discovered that there were one hundred envelopes. The reason I know this is that each envelope had a shiny new penny in it. My brother had given me one dollar for Christmas, but it was one of the most memorable gifts I ever got.

 

“Now faith is being sure of what we hope for and certain of what we do not see”.             Hebrews 11:1

 

As a little boy that Christmas coming down the steps, I had no idea what I was going to see around the corner. But I hoped that there would be great gifts waiting for me; and there was.

 

Christmas is full of hope in what we cannot see. However, it’s not just wishful thinking like that of a little boy coming down the stairs. It is being “certain of what we do not see”. For God sent His one and only son to die for us so that we might live.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

We couldn’t hope for a better gift than that.

 

 

(If God has spoken to you through this devotional, please feel free to share it with others.)

 

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What Does Your Life Communicate?

1 John 4:1-6

 

Do you open your Christmas presents on Christmas Eve or Christmas morning?

 

Growing up, my parents made us wait until the morning. It was sheer torture. I was so keyed up the night before my Dad would read the Christmas Carol just to put us to sleep. Even then, I found creative ways to stay awake like, hiding in the downstairs closet or hiding under my bed with a light to stay awake.

 

There are a lot of messages at Christmas time, and many of those messages come through time honored traditions, like gift giving. In Sweden, there is a tradition of watching a 1958 Disney Christmas special at 3:00 p.m. on December 24. The program consists of Jiminy Cricket introducing a series of vintage cartoons.

 

What message does this tradition communicate?

 

“¹Dearly loved friends, don’t always believe everything you hear just because someone says it is a message from God: test it first to see if it really is. For there are many false teachers around, ² and the way to find out if their message is from the Holy Spirit is to ask: Does it really agree that Jesus Christ, God’s Son, actually became man with a human body? If so, then the message is from God.” TLB

 

That’s what John wrote to the believers about how to determine if a spirit - or message - is genuine. He wrote that we should put messages and beliefs to the test; to make sure that the message you are hearing holds up to the truth of the Gospel.

 

Messages are normally communicated by word of mouth, but oftentimes messages are communicated by written word or body language, actions and even inaction.

 

This makes me wonder if our lives aren’t a message. And if that is true, what message are we communicating? What would happen if our message, our life, was put to John’s test?

 

As a child, I knew that Christmas was about Jesus, but the message that I heard, that came across loud and clear, was that Christmas was all about gift getting.

 

John wrote in his Gospel the true message about Christmas. “¹In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God… ¹⁴ The Word became flesh and made his dwelling among us. We have seen his glory, the glory of the one and only Son, who came from the Father, full of grace and truth.”        NIV

 

Jesus Christ came in the flesh from God. This is what we as believers celebrate, not just in December, but throughout the year. This is the truth. It may not be popular. It may not be PC. But it does pass the truth test.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

What does your life communicate?