Like many people, our Christmas TV always includes movies that we practically know by heart, but still love to watch!  We were watching The Santa Clause the other night, and a girl elf tells the young boy in the movie, “seeing is not believing, believing is seeing!”  In other words, the ability to believe in Santa was not there because he had seen Santa…he could SEE Santa because he believed first.  So a whole beautiful world of joy and magic opened up for him, and the happy ending to this movie was that eventually even the hardest skeptics became believers, because Santa is real and he gave them the ability.  Millions of people saw this movie and left thinking that it only takes a little bit of “belief” and EVERYONE is win over in the end, to live happily ever after.

Now, if this sounds very familiar, it should!  The whole of our Gospel message is almost the same…almost..and that “almost” is a big obstacle this time of year.  The Gospel of Jesus Christ is simple..by faith, which is a gift of God, we believe (even though we don’t physically see) in His life, death, burial, and resurrection, and He leads us to salvation by believing in Him.

And yet!  Hollywood’s ending is not the reality of this present world!  There is no “magic” that can take an unhappy sinner with an unfulfilled life and give him a new life with a new view and joy.  There is ONLY Jesus, and unlike the movie, NOT everyone will come around and believe!

So what’s the point?  It’s simply this, and I need to remember it probably more than most:  the best gift we can give the world AND the Lord is our lives this season, dedicated to sharing the real Jesus who came for a real reason and who died for others to recieve the GIFT of eternal life!  I am a Christmas fanatic, and love ALL of it..but it is very easy to join the world’s temporary “peace on earth” and “joy to the world” and forget to take it deeper with all those we can!  Let’s make sure and “unwrap” the Gospel and share that gift with everyone we can!