“WHAT HAVE YOU DONE WITH JESUS”?

 Imagine this for a moment.  It’s your birthday.  The entire World is busy decorating, planning, cooking, buying with a hurried sense of expectancy; overly eager to celebrate the day in which you were born.  Billions upon billions of families take extra special care to get the lights on the house, the yard decorated just right, the tree and the inside of the house trimmed with just the right amount of perfect precision to celebrate, YOUR Birthday.

For the past 30 days or more, the preparation for the celebration of the day YOU were born is the first, only, and last thing on peoples mind’s all over the world.  Families travel an untold number of thousands of miles in order to be “together” to celebrate this joyous, special, wonderful day.  YOUR Birthday!  Everywhere you go, everywhere your head turns and your eyes look, everywhere your feet tread, from every sidewalk in every major metropolitan area to the smallest, most unknown little “one-horse towns”; from every store front window, restaurant, billboard, and advertisement you see the reminder of YOUR special Day.

Then it happens.  The day in which the world has gathered together, eagerly anticipating the Glorious celebration of YOUR BIRTHDAY.  The stores are all closed, the restaurants are all locked up tight, cities look like ghost towns with nobody around.  Every radio, and television station around the entire globe has ceased all programming, except for songs about YOU, and shows about YOU and YOUR BIRTHDAY.  Words can’t begin to express the way in which you feel; the emotions bubbling in your heart.  Happy, Elation, Joy, Love, Care, Gratification, Excitement, Merriment, Satisfaction, Amusement, Delight, Bliss…..  All of these emotions you have been feeling in your heart for the past 30 days or more, as the excitement and anticipation of the Celebration of YOUR DAY has drawn near.

And now it is finally here.  The time has come, families worldwide are gathered together, the lights are on, the decorations are spectacularly beautiful to gaze upon.  The tables are all set with the finest of dishes money can buy, food fit for a King, the Feast of all Feasts, every table and countertop is splayed to overflowing with every dish imaginable.  Everything is in immaculate pristine perfection; all for the Special Celebration of YOUR BIRTHDAY!  As you stand by, eagerly waiting to be invited in to the homes where all of this splendid celebration of YOUR Birthday is taking place, out of all the different conversations that you here around the world, there is not one brief, tiny, passing mention of YOUR NAME!  From all of the hurried bustling about, you pay it no attention as you approach every door, just knowing in your heart and mind that when you get to the threshold there will be someone there with open arms to welcome YOU in to join the Warm, Festive, Joyful Celebration of YOUR BIRTHDAY.

Only to have the door

SLAMMED IN YOUR

 FACE!!!

Ostracized.  Cast-out.  Vagabond.  Vagrant.  Excluded.  Abandoned.  Alone.  Sad.  Lonely.  Heartbroken. Unloved. Despised.  Rejected.  These are just a few of the words reeling around in your mind, trying to come to grips with what you’re feeling in your heart.  Nevertheless, regardless of how you’re feeling, and the way in which you were just treated at and during the Celebration of Your Special Day, YOUR BIRTHDAY.  As you turn from the doorway and begin to walk back down the cold, lonely, empty street on your way back to your place; with all these different feeling running rampant in your heart and mind, knowing that you did absolutely nothing to deserve being treated the way you were just treated at every house around the world.  You suddenly STOP.  Standing there in the middle of the cold, and lonely street with the biting wind blowing bitterly, cutting against your skin.  You stand there and pray for the ones who have treated you so callously, so harsh.  A heartfelt prayer full of compassion and overflowing with Love, Grace, Forgiveness, and Mercy.  You walk on, with no bitterness, no hatred, no hard feelings or ill will for the ones you were just ostracized by.

As you walk on your way back to your place, against the cold bitter wind, the warm tears streaming from your eyes begin to freeze on your cheeks as you yearn for the people who just slammed the door in your face while joyously celebrating YOUR BIRTHDAY, to come to know you for Who you are; to Love you the way you Love them.  A compassionate smile starts to spread across your face, because you know that there is a Day coming soon, when every knee will bow and every tongue will confess that you are The King of kings and the Lord of lords.  You walk on, earnestly praying and interceding for everyone in the world to come to you, before that Great and Terrible Day comes.  After which, you know there will not be another chance for the ones you Love so much to escape the dreadful, horrifying future that awaits those who have rejected you.

You walk on, continuing to pray and intercede for them all to come to you.  With every step you take, you grow sadder and sadder in your heart, because you know that not all will come to you, not all will accept you and receive you as their personal Lord and Savior.  The warm tears continue to flow down your cheeks, tears of compassion, and sorrow; because you know that there will be those who are so caught up with and entangled with the cares of this (material) world, they will continue to reject you and your unfailing Love for them.  As you continue walking down the cold, dark, lonely street the sadness deepens and the tears flow more freely, because you know that there is nothing more that you can do for them than what you have already done.  And because of their choice to reject you and your Love, they have chosen for themselves an eternity without you, without your Love, without peace.  By their choice to reject you, they have thereby chosen for themselves an eternal future full of torment, anguish, pain, affliction, suffering, agony, and misery so horrible that words can’t begin to describe; nor any experience on this earth in this life can begin to relate to that terrible place that you created only for the devil and his angels, a place of unquenchable thirst and hunger; a place where Love cannot go, a place burning with eternal fire and brimstone so hot that the hottest man-made fire can’t come close to the torturous degrees of the eternal flames of Hell where the worm dieth not!

You continue on your journey back to your place, only briefly slowing down to glance back over your shoulder in hopes that the doors that were only moments before slammed in your face, will begin to open up and you will be invited in.  As the doors remain tightly shut and locked against you, you continue on.  Praying.  Hoping.  Yearning for them to come to you.  You continue on praying, hoping, yearning and interceding for each one…..

When we receive the many different and wonderful gifts during the Christmas Season, we quickly put them to use doing what they are created to do.  So the questions remain; have we each personally used the Greatest Gift ever given to us for the purpose for which He was created and given?  Have we really made Jesus the Lord of our life?  In YOUR heart and in YOUR mind, is Jesus Christ really the reason you celebrate this Christmas Season?  Or is He just another by-word, a “stamp-of-approval” you use to satisfy, justify, and placate your own selfish, greedy desires?

These are questions that only you can answer.  And remember, regardless of how you answer them “out loud” or to others, God already knows your answers to these questions.  Again,

“WHAT HAVE YOU DONE WITH JESUS”?