November and December begin the busy holiday season!  (Already??)  A time meant for reflection and remembrance, which can easily turn into a time of rush and regret.  The reason for the season, the One who came to seek and save the lost…  

The goal of the Christian life is to become like this Savior, but this is the very time of year that our character can be most challenged.  How can we use this time to draw closer to Him and develop traits that reflect His character?  How can we be developing and blessing others with the Fruits of the Spirit? 

3 Ways to Bless others through the Fruits of the Spirit: 

1. Dive into God’s Word! 

Always the thing we should do first, often the thing we decide to do last.  We choose worry, we choose weak human efforts.  I find that the more time I spend in His Word, the more I am able to recall those words of peace for every situation.  Read it out loud over and over.  Pour God’s Word over your family and bearing fruit for Him will come naturally.  Rely on God’s strength, not your own.  Our strength is extremely limited, but God’s strength knows no limits.  The more connected to God we are, the more fruitful we are!

2. Calendar Control!  

Do you REALLY need to attend every holiday event you are invited to?  Prayerfully consider each option. Overloaded schedules tend to throw most of the Fruits of the Spirit out the window!  It brings rushing instead of remembrance…which leads to regret. Slow down, know His peace, fully enjoy His amazing gift to us.

3. Focus on blessing others!  

Holiday commercials push and promote the need for MORE, causing stress and stealing joy. Bear fruit by blessing others with your time and meeting genuine needs.  What can you do for others as a family?  Giving doesn’t need to put us into financial debt, but the knowledge that our debt has been paid should cause us to want to share that amazing blessing/gift with others.  Love God and love others, that’s what it’s all about.  We constantly remind our children that the only things that last forever are God, His Word and PEOPLE!

We sing this song in our home all the time to remember the fruits of the spirit!

What other ideas do you have to bless others?  What ways will you and your family ensure that you slow down and bear fruit this holiday season?

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As I write this I am preparing for a missions trip with two of my three boys.  By the time you read this we will be back already  I’ll put together an update post about the trip that you can find over on my blog.

I am looking forward to this opportunity, especially for my 9 year old son.  We live in a society where even those of us with very little have so much more than the rest of the world.  We are very much used to instant gratification and often so spoiled but we don’t even realize it!  I am hoping this trip will open his eyes to thinking outside of his own little world and show him what REAL need is like.  I hope and pray that he will embrace this opportunity to give and learn.  I pray that he will know how blessed we can be by blessing others.

Each of our team members has been asked to prepare a 5-10 minute devotional to share with the group throughout the week.  I was thinking and praying about what to share this morning.  I had music playing on my phone and then on the Christian station on my TV and the same song came on twice within an hour…so I thought perhaps that was God’s way of answering that question.  

This song has been close to my heart for many years.  As technology progresses and our schedules fill up more and more, it is extremely easy to get away from the basics of life.  Living in a state of busy-ness with constant distraction leads us to worry and focus on current worldly issues, instead of focusing in the one who can bring us through those issues.  Taking our eyes off of Jesus for just one moment causes us to sink very quickly.  (Matthew 14:22-33)

I often wonder how people make it through this life without God and a real relationship with his son, Jesus.  It may sound sort of cliche to ask such a question, but I very seriously would have given up long ago without this solid foundation. Loss of friends and family, miscarriage, marriage struggles, physical disabilities, job loss, uncertainties in relationships…and so on… I cannot do it without being able to cry out to a loving God and Savior.  And yet so many are surviving without Him.  I don’t want to just survive, I want to THRIVE!

I pray that this song will encourage you, as well, to prayerfully remove distractions from your life and get back to the “Basics of Life.”

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By Kristen @ Smithspirations, Contributing Writer

Around this time of the year, a rallying cry from Christians often has to do with contending for the real meaning of Christmas. We hear and say slogans like “Jesus is the reason for the season” and “Keep Christ in CHRISTmas”, and all with good reason. I admit that I enjoy making homemade gifts, supporting home and small businesses with my purchases, and yes, even scoring a good deal from a big retailer, but all of the buying can take away from a more worshipful mindset if I’m not careful.

With children of my own, I’m much more conscious of this. My husband and I desperately want them to not just think of Christmas as a time to get presents. Of course there’s no escaping that aspect of it in the mind of a child, but we want them to know about the greater meaning. We choose to keep our gift giving modest with three gifts each. We tell them that we give them gifts because we love them, just as God gave the gift of His Son because He loves us.

Last year while opening gifts, we took breaks during the openings to read portions of the Christmas story in the Bible and sing some favorite Christmas hymns. My husband would talk a little bit about the story, perhaps ask some questions, and then we would continue on with a few more gifts. But when all of the opening was finished, we didn’t want to just leave the Christmas story there with the stable, the shepherds, and baby Jesus in the manger.

Jesus in a manger as a newborn baby is a wonderful, miraculous event. All babies are such tiny miracles, but this baby was even more so with all of the supernatural surrounding His birth. Imagine the God of the universe making Himself so humble that He came, as a helpless infant, to lay in a stable with common animals and very common people! It’s really beyond the imagination of man, and deserves all the emphasis we can give it.

However, we also want to use Christmas as an opportunity to take our children on in the story. We wanted to call their minds to remember what they’ve been taught about Jesus.

• Did He stay a baby in a manger?
• What did He do when He grew up?
• How did He save us?
• Is He still dead? 
• What can He do for us now?

Yes, we want to keep Christ in Christmas, but we don’t want to leave Him in the manger in the minds of our children. We want them to see that the baby Jesus didn’t stay a baby. He grew, He healed, He taught, and He ultimately saved. We want to use Christmas as an opportunity to draw their hearts to Calvary and on to the day of Pentecost, when the same Holy Spirit that was in Christ came to dwell in the hearts of His followers. And most importantly, we want our children to know that Jesus wants to save them and fill their hearts, just as He did for those first followers.

Charles Wesley, in the famous Christmas Hymn Hark the Herald Angels Sing, put it quite well:

Hail the heav’nly Prince of Peace!
Hail the Son of Righteousness!
Light and life to all He brings,
Ris’n with healing in His wings.
Mild He lays His glory by,
Born that man no more may die.
Born to raise the sons of earth,
Born to give them second birth.

As parents, my husband and I want nothing more than to see our children drawn to the Lord and committed to serving Him. Yes, they need to know the miracle of the Christmas story and of Jesus as an infant in the manger. But more than that, Christmas is a wonderful opportunity to remind them of what Jesus did, not as a baby in a manger, but as the Savior of the world.

How do you emphasize the Christmas story in your family’s traditions? Do you ever talk to your children about Christ’s ministry, sacrifice, or salvation during Christmas?

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