Daily Christmas Devotional for December

My family’s daily devotionals during the month of December have perhaps become our spiritual highlight of the year. Christmastime with the ubiquitous music, decorations, and busyness can either serve as a distraction from the Lord or as a break from the norms of the year to direct your heart to worship Jesus. This year my family will be using two resources that I’m happy to commend to you. I have secured a limited number of these books at very special pricing. They will be available at the book table on Sunday, Dec 1st. So please consider picking them up and beginning this daily practice as a family now until Christmas.

• Come Let Us Adore Him by Tripp – $8 – Written for adults. Good for daily reading on your own, with your spouse, or as a family. Each day’s reading has some biblical passages to read as well as a central theme to discuss with your children if you choose to do this one as a family.  My wife and I are reading this on our own.
• A Jesus Christmas by Barbara Reaoch – $5 – Designed especially for families with children. Each day’s study involves reading a biblical passage, an explanation, and a short response. The book has blanks and really seems to draw children in, with a simpler version for younger children. We have set aside time each morning for our children to begin reading. Then each evening we will read the passages aloud together and review their responses and sing together.

It is so easy to assume that we are thinking about God-come-flesh, to be thinking about the gospel because you are so familiar with the story of Christmas. But it is so important to stop and spend time in extended, worshipful meditation on these Christmas truths with which we are so familiar. Tripp writes in

Come Let Us Adore Him, “It is good to be familiar with the story of the gospel of Jesus Christ…But familiarity often does bad things to us…When we are familiar with things, we tend to quit examining them…When we are familiar with things we tend not to celebrate them as we once did. Familiarity tends to rob us of our wonder. And here’s what’s important about this: What has captured the wonder of our hearts will control the way we live.”

So commit to not allowing your heart to get sidetracked by distraction or comfortable with the everpresent truths of Christmas with which we may have become overly comfortable. You don’t have to do use a daily devotional, but you do need to pay special attention to shepherding your own heart and caring for your home this month. You won’t do it well by accident or without a plan. So make a plan, and please consider using one or both of these resources to assist you.

Lord willing, I will be by the booktable before and after service to help with your heart- and home-shepherding strategies for December and beyond.