Friday, December
20, 2024
Eph 4:31-32
31 Let all bitterness,
and wrath, and anger, and clamour, and evil speaking, be put away from you,
with all malice:
32 And be ye kind one
to another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, even as God for Christ's sake
hath forgiven you.
It
was a cold and dour Christmastide in the counting house of ole Scrooge and
Marley. Ebenezer hunched over his books making marks with an unsharpened quill.
Bob stood at his upright desk too cold to work and too frightened to move. At
home, what few things that Bob had was warm and welcoming. At home, the many
things that Ebenezer had were covered in dust and disappointment. So, Christmas
came to both. But each celebrated it, or didn’t celebrate it, according to his
own heart.
Does it not seem that the world is
divided into those two characters? The one surrounded by unnoticed blessings
and the other pinched by unnoticed want move through life in opposite
directions. One seems destined for perpetual misery and the other singing like
a bird in the rain. The difference is the heart, you see!
The
heart makes all the difference. “The heart is deceitful above all things, and
desperately wicked: who can know it? (Jeremiah 17:9) On the other hand “with
the heart man believes unto righteousness.” (Romans 10:10) The heart colors and
flavors all other circumstances. This is very noticeable at Christmas time.
How
about your own heart? Is it right with God? Make your complaints known to God and cry out
for mercy because His mercy is from everlasting to everlasting. A broken and
contrite heart He will not ignore. Let God change your heart. When that happens
everything else will become new.
Ps 51:7-8
7 Purge me with
hyssop, and I shall be clean: wash me, and I shall be whiter than snow.
8 Make me to hear joy
and gladness; that the bones which thou hast broken may rejoice.
Dear God, don’t let my
heart ruin Christmas for me and those around me. Change my heart, O God. Let me
see the beauty that has been hidden from my eyes. AMEN
No comments:
Post a Comment