I know Christmas is over. I can tell by looking in my wallet. And by looking in the room where our whole clan had our Christmas. I heard there are some great sales after Christmas. I'm looking for a bargain on trash bags.
Actually, we had a very blessed Christmas together. And besides some very thoughtful gifts I received and some memories to treasure, I come away from Christmas with a gold nugget I found. In the Luke 2 account of Jesus' birth - a passage of Scripture I've traveled many a time.
But here's what hit me during Christmas 2010. In those warm but familiar words, the angel said, "Behold, I bring you good news of great joy which shall be for all people" - stop right there. From the first moments of Jesus' arrival on earth, heaven made clear that the good news about Him was for "all people."
Thirty-three years later, Jesus would give His final orders before returning to the heaven He came from that first Christmas: "Go and tell the Good News to everybody, everywhere!" (Mark 16:15 - NLB).
It was there when He came. It was there when He left. The mandate to get the Good News about Him to "all people." The shepherds got it. As soon as they saw Him, "they spread the word."
Fast forward 2,000 years. When a church becomes a club - made for its members, focusing on the clubhouse - it's gone deaf to the orders. When believers don't tell the people they know about the Savior they have, the Good News dies with their silence. And the lost folks they know die without hope.
But the Great Commission of Jesus came with His birth and was His final word before He left.
Whatever the years before have been, let 2011 be, as never before, the "Year of our Lord" 2011. The year each of us fulfills our destiny and our Lord's orders - to make sure the News about Jesus gets to "all the people" we know.