Stuff…belongings…toys…I buy and sell all the time. It is what I do. I do it because I love stuff. Especially antique stuff. I love craftsmanship, materials like sterling, carved wood, perfectly woven fabric, hand stitching, hand painted details… I could go on… but the point is we live in a world that places a great value on stuff! God wants us to have so much more than “things”. God sent us the gift of His Son not so that we could possess him and parade him around like our favorite sweater or new car, but that we could have relationship with HIM. And so that we could stand in this world with open arms that do not feel the need to grab and clutch at every passing thing because we know we have him and that he has set us free to “live and Move and have our being….


Acts 17: 22-31 NIV

22Paul then stood up in the meeting of the Areopagus and said: “Men of Athens! I see that in every way you are very religious. 23For as I walked around and looked carefully at your objects of worship, I even found an altar with this inscription: to an unknown god. Now what you worship as something unknown
I am going to proclaim to you. 24“The God who made the world and everything in it is the Lord of heaven and earth and does not live in temples built by hands. 25And he is not served by human hands, as if he needed anything, because he himself gives all men life and breath and everything else. 26From one man he made every nation of men, that they should inhabit the whole earth; and he determined the times set for them and the exact places where they should live. 27God did this so that men would seek him and perhaps reach out for him and find him, though he is not far from each one of us. 28‘For in him we live and move and have our being.’ As some of your own poets have said, ‘We are his offspring.’ 29“Therefore since we are God’s offspring, we should not think that the divine being is like gold or silver or stone—an image made by man’s design and skill. 30In the past God overlooked such ignorance, but now he commands all people everywhere to repent. 31For he has set a day when he will judge the world with justice by the man he has appointed. He has given proof of this to all men by raising him from the dead.”

Do you feel like you are missing something in your life? Do you feel like life has let you down? Are you standing in a place of complete despair? Maybe you feel as though you have everything you need… Wherever you find yourself at in this moment there is more for you… more than we can imagine when we seek him and let him transform us. Merry CHRISTmas!