Are you ready for Christmas? Is your heart ready for Christmas? When you get together with friends and relatives this Christmas, will they see Christ in you? How about in your marriage—will anyone see God, whose very name is “Love” working in and through your married lives? Are you communicating the gospel with and without words? Keep in mind that your married lives are to be a testimony to draw others to Christ. Will they experience the grace of God while they’re with you?

We came upon a poem, written years ago, by an unknown author and adapted it for our Christmas Marriage Message to you. We pray it will speak to your heart as it has ours:

“Ready for Christmas!” she said with a sigh,
As she gave a last touch to the gifts piled high;
Then wearily sat for a moment and read
Till soon, very soon, she was nodding her head.

Then quickly spoke a voice in her dream,
“Ready for Christmas? What do you mean?
Ready for CHRIST, when only this week
Not one nice thing to your spouse did you speak.”

“Ready for Christmas, while holding a grudge?
Why, how can the CHRIST-CHILD come and abide
In a heart that is selfish and filled with pride?

Ready for Christmas, when only today
Your spouse needed love and you turned him away—
Without even a smile to show that you cared?
The little he asked — it could have been spared.
Ready for Christmas, your circle’s too small.
Why, you’re not ready for Christmas at all!”

She awoke with a start, and a cry of despair,
“There’s so little time, and I’ve still to prepare!
O FATHER, forgive me, I see what you mean.
To be ready means more than a house that’s swept clean.”

Yes, more than the giving of gifts and a tree,
It’s the heart swept clean that HE wants to see,
A heart that is free from bitterness and sin,
Ready for Christmas — and ready for HIM!

Truly think about whether you’re really ready for Christmas. If you have bitterness and un-forgiveness in your heart, you aren’t ready for Christmas. If you have self-centeredness in your attitude, you aren’t ready for Christmas.

It tells us in the Bible that we’re to have the same attitude “as that of Christ Jesus: Who, being in very nature God, did not consider equality with God something to be grasped, but made himself nothing, taking the very nature of a servant, being made in human likeness. And being found in appearance as a man, he humbled himself and became obedient to death— even death on a cross” (Philippians 2: 5-8). Do you have that same attitude?

If things become more important than people, you’re forgetting what Christ came on this earth to give to us. We’re to be using things and loving people— not the other way around. We urge you to simplify your Christmas. The greatest gift you can give your spouse and everyone you’re with this Christmas (and throughout the year) is the gift of the Love of Christ.

There’s an internet site that we encourage you to visit and encourage you to tell your loved ones about. It’s: www.needhim.com. It will help you to remember the REAL reason for the season. In closing we’d like to leave you with these words from the Bible: “Make every effort to live in peace with all men and to be holy; without holiness no one will see the Lord” (Hebrews 12:14). “And let us consider how we may spur one another on toward love and good deeds. Let us not give up meeting together, as some are in the habit of doing, but let us encourage one another— and all the more as you see the Day approaching” (Hebrews 10:24-25).

Our love and prayers are with you as together we work on our marriages so they will be a living testimony of the love of Christ.

Have a blessed Christmas!
Steve and Cindy Wright

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