Earlier this month, we shared the most important part of keeping the spirit of Christmas throughout the year – a personal relationship with the Lord Jesus Christ. There is no other way to strengthen the spirit of Christmas within our lives. Jesus must be the foundation upon which everything in our life is built. But this is not where the maintaining of the spirit of Christmas ends, but it is the beginning. The next thing that as Christians, we must do, is to be diligent in seeking Him and His will for each day of our lives. We do this each time we fellowship with the Lord through our personal devotional time. Our personal devotional time is where we spend time reading the Bible, praying to our Lord, and in singing of songs and praises. We cannot completely serve Him or diligently seek after Him if we do not spend this personal time in fellowship with the Lord.
Spirit of Christmas: a time of personal devotion
The apostle Paul understood the importance of seeking the Lord’s will in all that he did and through his writings, urges Christians today the same as he did during his time on Earth. He wrote to the Christians in Ephesus: I therefore, the prisoner of the Lord, beseech you that ye walk worthy of the vocation wherewith ye are called, With all lowliness and meekness, with longsuffering, forbearing one another in love; Endeavouring to keep the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace (Ephesians 4:1-3). Paul is calling for us to walk worthily in our vocation – and as Christians our vocation is what the Lord has called us to do beginning with sharing the gospel with all those we meet. And just as we all try to learn all we can and seek to improve our performance at our jobs, we should seek to learn all we can about the vocation the Lord has called us to serve. Just as we expect our doctors, mechanics, and plumbers to know what we are doing, we should equally strive to know, to master the callings of our faith.
This is exactly the sentiment Paul wrote in a letter to Timothy: Study to shew thyself approved unto God, a workman that needeth not to be ashamed, rightly dividing the word of truth (2 Timothy 2:15). As I have shared in previous blogs, it wasn’t until 2006 that I came to accept Jesus as my Lord and Savior; it was the result of me making studying the Bible intensely and purposefully. I set out to study the Bible just as I was studying the materials for graduate school. As we begin to seek God’s will in our life, as we begin to study the scriptures, and as we begin to accept the Lordship of Jesus in our life, the Holy Spirit will begin to teach us and to mold us into what we need to be.
Spirit of Christmas: bearing fruit for Jesus
As we seek after the Lord and truly begin to commune with Him on a more personal level each day, we will begin to see the Holy Spirit work in our lives. We will become more familiar with the things of the Lord and we will be able to understand the spiritual need of others, just as others have prayed for ours. The Lord finds our spiritual growth pleasing as our lives begin to reflect the love of Christ and become more fruitful. Jesus even told us that He wants our faith in Him to bear fruit; that the fruit we produce will be meaningful and lasting. Jesus taught this very thing to those around Him that day as He said: Henceforth I call you not servants; for the servant knoweth not what his lord doeth: but I have called you friends; for all things that I have heard of my Father I have made known unto you. Ye have not chosen me, but I have chosen you, and ordained you, that ye should go and bring forth fruit, and that your fruit should remain: that whatsoever ye shall ask of the Father in my name, he may give it you (John 15:15-16).
Again, Paul reaffirms the teachings of Christ, urging those early Christians in Colossus: For this cause we also, since the day we heard it, do not cease to pray for you, and to desire that ye might be filled with the knowledge of his will in all wisdom and spiritual understanding; 0 That ye might walk worthy of the Lord unto all pleasing, being fruitful in every good work, and increasing in the knowledge of God (Colossians 1:9-10). Not only are we to seek out what the Lord would have us do, to do it to the best of our abilities, but we are to pray, according to Paul’s example here, that others may also be “filled with knowledge” – or to be taught and led by the Holy Spirit. It is through our daily fellowship with the Lord where we truly are taught by the Holy Spirit and where we will begin to bear fruit for our Lord and Savior.
