What Gift Will You Exchange With Jesus This Christmas?

I love gifts! There is something wonderful about holding a beautifully wrapped gift in you hands or seeing them piled up under the Christmas tree. It really doesn’t matter what is inside the box. Just knowing that someone took the time to deliberately show their love and appreciation is a gift in itself.

Last week my husband and I saw Kirk Cameron’s movie Saving Christmas. The critics hate this movie and it wasn’t the best movie I’ve ever seen, but it is a great movie to open up discussion within your home about the true meaning of Christmas. With all the commercial marketing around the holiday season, it’s easy to forget why we give gifts on Christmas Day. The process of giving and receiving becomes more about obligation than about loving and blessing others.

There is much controversy over how the tradition of giving gifts at Christmas began, but I believe the first gifts started with the wise men. They came following the birth of Jesus bearing gifts of gold, frankincense, and myrrh. Strange gifts for a baby but appropriate gifts for a king. Gold representing wealth, frankincense representing worship, and myrrh representing surrender. These are the gifts of one desiring to  yield to the sovereignty of their king. These are the gifts at the heart of Christmas.

Matthew 2:11 says, “And when they were come into the house, they saw the young child with Mary His mother, and fell down, and worshiped Him: and when they had opened their treasures, they presented unto Him gifts; gold, and frankincense and myrrh.”

This Christmas during your gift buying, gift-wrapping, and gift exchange with family and friends, set your mind also to purposely exchange a gift with Jesus.  This will look different for each of us because we each possess different gifts we need to lay at His feet. Some gifts are so precious they can only be packaged in a yielded heart. Click To Tweet

Exchanging Your Idea of Wealth For His

• You bring your tithe in exchange for His promised provisions.
• You bring your striving and effort in exchange for the joy of living out your destiny and purpose.
• You bring your titles/degrees/honors in exchange for the knowledge of being loved just because of who you are and not what you’ve accomplished.
• You bring your time in exchange for the comfort of trusting in His timing.

Exchanging Your Worship For His Abiding Presence

• You bring your disappointment in exchange for the hope that can only be found in Christ.
• You bring your fears in exchange for peace that passes all understanding.
• You bring you pain in exchange for healing and wholeness of mind, body, and spirit.
• You bring your sorrow in exchange for unspeakable joy deposited deep within your heart.

Exchanging Your Need to Understand Through Surrender

• You bring your weaknesses in exchange for His strength.
• You bring your insufficiency in exchange for His grace.
• You bring your insecurity in exchange for His confidence.
• You bring you impossibilities in exchange for His power.

What gift will you give Jesus this Christmas? 

**If you are following along with my Holiday UnDiet this post may seem a little out of place, but it is not. Much of the stress most of us face comes from not exchanging these gifts with Jesus. So rather than releasing them we add them to our backpacks and carry them around ever where we go.  These are unnecessary loads we were never meant to bear and the stress of carrying them can lead to unhealthy habits. Not only do I want to see you free from the physical weight but also the emotional and spiritual weight many of us carry. May this Christmas find you lighter than you have ever been. **

Saundra Dalton-Smith is an internal medicine physician, author, speaker, and hope activist. She shares with audiences nationwide on the topics of eliminating limiting emotions and helps them see their options in life. She is the founder of I Choose My Best Life, a movement to renew hope in a generation where depression, stress, and fear is peaking. Her books include Set Free to Live Free: Breaking Through the 7 Lies Women Tell Themselves (2011) and Come Empty (2015).