Today's Devotional

December 2, 2002

Subject:  Tis The Season

Colossians 2:16 - "Let no man therefore judge you in meat, or in drink, or in respect of an holyday, or of the new moon, or of the Sabbath days:" 

Well it's here.  Yes you can smell it in the air.  The Thanksgiving turkey is still being digested.  The snow begins to fall, except in my home of Texas, and the Christmas trees go up.  The stores are now packed with shoppers and the "what I want for Christmas" requests are being echoed throughout your home.  We call this, the Holiday Season.  While for Christians this is all a prelude to commemorating the birth of our Savior Jesus Christ, for many, it's an annual ritual of shopping, partying and gluttony.  Yes, it's the season to be jolly.

Well, we as believers need to know that while this is all for a season, we should be jolly year round and it's okay not to buy in to all of the stuff going on around us during the holidays.  That is a different kind of jolly.  Jolly by one definition means to be full of high spirits.  We are already full of the "one" Spirit that counts and so in that sense our jolliness is continual.  However, be forewarned that if we don't buy in as the world thinks we should, we will be labeled "grinches."  That's where the verse above comes in.  Why worry about how they judge us when God is the only one we aim to please.

Well enjoy the season and be jolly in "the" High spirit and not in the high spirits.

Carlen