Rejoice! Rejoice! Emanuel Has Come!

Well, Merry Christmas folks! It seems like this time of the year always seems to come and go quickly...either that or we just don't slow down enough to realize it's been here all along. Sometimes I wonder how we got from the celebration of the birth of Christ to trees and presents...and to the extent that those things seem to be overbearing the original cause for the season. (If you still haven't listened to the best song ever...which is quite fitting since it is Christmas and all...go here)

Ok, so there's a point to all of this....One thing (or rather several things) that I asked for this year for christmas were books. Needless to say, I got four of them....and I've already got one finished. So here are a few things I pulled from "the barbarian way" by erwin mcmanus:

• "Jesus is being lost in a religion bearing His name. People are being lost because they cannot reconcile Jesus' association with Christianity. Christianity has become docile, domesticated, and civilized. We have forgotten that there is a kingdom of darkness stealing the hopes and dreams and sould of a humanity without God. It is time we hear the barbarian call, to form a barbarian tribe, and to unleashe the barbarian revolt. Let the invasion begin..."
• "The original call of Jesus was so simple, so clean, so clear: "Follow Me." He wants us to surrender our lives to Him and follow Him into the unknown. And if it means a life of suffering, hardship, and disappointment, it will be worth it because following Jesus Christ is more powerful and more fulfilling than living with everything in the world minus Him. Have we forgotten this? Have we become so refined and so civilized that the benefits of our faith have become more precious and more valuable to us than the Benefactor of our faith?

So here's what I'm wondering...Have we become too concerned with music, worship, services, programming, and all the other stuff that comes with "church" and "christianity" are more important to us than God himself? Or have we been too concerned with our relationships with others that we have ingored our relationship with God? Do we love the benefits more than we love Him? But then again music, worship, service, and programming aren't bad...it's when they become more important than God that we need to realize that there is a major flaw in priorities. Moreover, what about allowing Him to live his life through us? Some people have missed the point. It's not about us! It's all about Him! Even if we had everything we could ever want, it would be nothing, vanity, meaningless, empty with out Him.