You’ve made your list, checked it twice, and the presents are starting to pile up under the tree (or, like me, you’re frantically checking your Amazon delivery updates). But what about the birthday boy? You got anything wrapped up for Jesus this year?
Stick with me. I promise this isn’t a Jesus-juke so that the preacher-boy-turned-writer can explain that you’re actually the best gift Jesus can get this Christmas. (Cue the cheese alarm!) There are actually four things Jesus would be happy to receive this Christmas—and they’re all within arm’s reach.
Truth be told, Jesus would love to welcome you into his family this Christmas. But I’ve also found him to be a gentleman. He doesn’t force or pry. He is a patient, working in his own time. That’s the truth, whether you’ve been following Jesus for 50 years or you’re still investigating his claims to divinity. No matter where you find yourself this holiday season, there’s a little something-something you can bring to the birthday boy. And no, it’s not a drum solo. Somebody shut that little drummer boy up; the baby’s trying to sleep.
4 Gifts Jesus Actually Wants This Christmas
1) FURNITURE
“Yet you are holy, enthroned on the praises of Israel.” (Psalm 22:3)
The Bible’s book of poetry says you’re a builder, no matter how long it’s been since you’ve picked up Legos and let your imagination run wild. In fact, you’re not just a builder, you’re a skilled artisan of fine furniture.
Every time you open your mouth to sing about God’s goodness, say thank you for a blessing, or share His movement in your life with a friend, your praises give God a throne to sit on. At Christmas time, it’s easy to forget just how much He deserves it.
Running from Christmas party to school event to the mall and back again, we can lose the plot. We don’t do all this for the warm fuzzies, the nostalgia of simpler times, or even to show how much we love our family and friends—it’s to celebrate the God who didn’t wait for us to climb our way up to Him. Instead, he came down to us. He kicked around in the mud, the blood, and the beer with us. And He made a way for us to live for more than just the next payday.
There are so many options for you to get building on God’s throne. You can sing along with other believers at worship gatherings, focusing on the words and how you’ve found them to be true in your own life (Psalm 96:1-3). You can turn your commute to work into a praise session, singing loud where no one else but God can hear you (Psalm 104:33). You take time to thank God for the specific ways you’ve seen his blessings in your life (Psalm 100:4). You can make it a point to share your spiritual breakthroughs and learnings with others, pointing to God as the author of them all (Ephesians 5:19). You can slow down and recognize that all good things come from God’s hands (James 1:17). You could spend time in nature (Psalm 19:1), eating some good food (Ecclesiastes 5:18), or doing something creative (Ephesians 2:10). The list goes on and on.
Psalms is poetry, of course, so there’s a little creative license at work here. Does singing worship songs actually hammer some gold onto God’s throne? No. But your praise, and the attitude of gratitude that accompanies it, puts God in his rightful place in your life—on the throne. It puts the focus and attention where it belongs, on God, reminding you in the process that you aren’t the source of blessing in your life, but the recipient.
This Christmas, some new furniture might be the best thing you can give the King.
2) COLLECTIBLES
“You have collected all my tears in your bottle. You have recorded each one in your book. My enemies will retreat when I call to you for help. This I know: God is on my side!”
(Psalm 56:8-9) (NLT)
Not every holiday is created equal. Sometimes praise to God dies in your throat. I understand. I’ve walked through some rough holidays myself. This scripture has become an anchor for me when the days turn dark.
Jesus doesn’t wear rose-colored glasses. Better than anyone else, He knows our shortcomings, our doubts, and our pain-points (Psalm 103:13-14). He understands that life is hard, because his life on earth was hard. It was filled with temptations, rejections, and pains that were spiritual, emotional, relational, and physical (Hebrews 4:15).
When praise is hard to bring, He’s honored to accept your tears. In fact, the Psalm above says He collects them. Not in a sadistic way, but in a way that says no tear you’ve ever shed has been ignored. You are important enough to Him that he’s noted every heartache, every question, and every pain point.
Why doesn’t He just solve all our problems? That’s a different question for another article. I do know, though, that my parents, who are great people, didn’t solve all my problems for me either—and I’m better for it. God is a Father, whose endgame isn’t my happiness, but my holiness (1 Peter 1:14-16). Sometimes the road to get there goes through deep, dark valleys. We keep walking, trusting God has a plan for it all.
God is a good King who deserves a throne, and he’s also a loving Father, who knows when you hurt, and he is honored when you are brave enough to share that hurt with him.
This Christmas, if you can’t bring praise, you can bring your tears. They’re priceless collectibles to the God that’s still working a good plan for your life, no matter how dark the valley feels right now (Psalm 23:4, Romans 8:28).
3) AROMATHERAPY
“And when he had taken the scroll, the four living creatures and the twenty-four elders fell down before the Lamb, each holding a harp, and golden bowls full of incense, which are the prayers of the saints.” (Revelation 5:8)
Incense isn’t just for patchouli-loving stoner kids anymore. Your prayers bring a sweet smell to God’s throne room in heaven. For Christmas, you can keep ‘em coming.
I’ll be honest, I’m generally a pretty dirty person, who never paid much attention to smells. And so, like all great love stories, I married a beautiful woman who was both very clean and extraordinarily sensitive to smell. (One morning, in our first year of marriage, I woke up to her spraying me down with Febreze. “I love you, but you smell terrible. Go take a shower.”)
Now we have a cat and three kids at home, so my bride keeps oil diffusers going all day. Honestly, they’ve made me a believer because of how amazing they make our home smell—like grapefruit, cedar wood, or a Narnian pine forest. But after a few hours, the water and oil combination dries up, and you have to refill and restart them again. Maybe it works the same way with our prayers.
In a culture of influencers and experts, it’s tempting to think that the quality of my prayers is the most important thing. But I actually think it’s the opposite. It’s the quantity that gets God’s attention, and keeps his throne room filled with a pleasing aroma.
Jesus told a story once about a man who, in the middle of the night, needed some bread for an unexpected visitor. He went to a friend’s house and kept banging on the door until he got what he needed. He told this story right after teaching his disciples how to pray (Luke 11:1-10).
For the man needing bread, and for us, the power is in persistence, not stringing together the right combination of old-English thees and thous. Maybe this is why Scripture says we should “pray without ceasing.” I know I give up way too easily.
This Scripture reframes how I think about prayer. Instead of a means to end—a way to get what I want—my prayers are actually an opportunity for me to bless God with something sweet. Prayer is dependence in practice. The more I do it, the more God is honored.
Beautifully, the Scripture doesn’t say anything about the type of prayer being offered either. One isn’t more valuable than another. Every prayer goes into the bowl of sweet-smelling stuff—the angry ones and the heartfelt ones, the despairing ones and the desperate ones.
This Christmas, give Jesus something sweet—pray.
4) A COAT, A COFFEE, OR A CALL
“Then the righteous will answer him, ‘Lord, when did we see you hungry and feed you, or thirsty and give you something to drink? When did we see you a stranger and invite you in, or needing clothes and clothe you? When did we see you sick or in prison and go to visit you?
The King will reply, ‘Truly, I tell you, whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers and sisters of mine, you did for me.” (Matthew 25:38-40)
For all the practical gift-givers, this one is for you. No matter the season, when you meet someone else’s needs, you’ve given a gift to Jesus. The Messiah wears a lot of disguises. He might look like an underprivileged child needing a coat, a homeless vet looking for a hot cup of coffee, or a lonely inmate facing the holidays heartbroken. When you show up with a coat, a cup, or a call, Jesus actually unwraps the present.
I can hear the “yeah, buts,” now. “But what if the non-profit squanders my money? What if the homeless guy buys beer? What if the inmate mistreats me?” That’s a risk you have to be willing to take. In the same way you can’t control what little cousin Jimmy does with his RC car on Christmas morning, you can’t give a gift and also dictate how it’s used. Jesus’ command was simply to give.
Everyone is familiar with Charles Dickens’ masterpiece, A Christmas Carol, and the idea of Marley’s ghost visiting the miserly and self-occupied Scrooge. What you might not realize, unless you’ve read the short story, is that Marley isn’t the only ghost floating around that night. As Marley leaves Scrooge’s bedroom, the old miser looks out his window and is greeted with a ghastly scene. All over Victorian London, ghosts are floating in torment. What causes them the most grief? Their inability to meet the needs of the city’s poor, ignored, and marginalized. That’s something you can only do while you’re alive.
When God ushers in his kingdom, and all things are made new, we will still offer him throne-building praise; though we will no longer cry, our emotions will continue to be a treasure to him; the pleasing aroma of our prayers will still fill the throne room. But we can only meet Jesus in the sick, hurting, and abused while on Earth.
This Christmastime, perhaps more than anything else, Jesus is looking for a coat, a coffee, or a call. It’s his birthday after all, best not to keep him waiting.
Disclaimer: This article is 100% human-generated.
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At Crossroads, we major on the majors and minor on the minors. We welcome a diverse community of people who all agree that Jesus is Lord and Savior, even if they view minor theological and faith topics in different ways based on their unique experiences. Our various authors embody that principle, and we approach you, our reader, in the same fashion. You don’t have to agree with every detail of any article you see here to be part of this community or pursue faith. Chances are even our whole staff doesn’t even agree with every detail of what you just read. We are okay with that tension. And we think God is okay with that, too. The foundation of everything we do is a conviction that the Bible is true and that accepting Jesus is who he said he is leads to a healthy life of purpose and adventure—and eternal life with God.
