The Gift and The Glory

 John 5:44. How can you believe, when you receive glory from one another and do not seek the glory that comes from the only God?

Do you remember the Christmas catalog we knew as the "wish book?" Oh how easily it was to become lost in it, totally forgetting it truly was a ... wish book! It is our nature to seek-out that which we do not have in order to gain it, and oh the many places of our seeking. Time after time, year after year resulting in a frivolous lifetime, we seek and fail to find that which we seek. Of course, I don't speak of tangible things ... then, neither did Jesus. John Piper suggests we must become "disenchanted" with earthly things - enchantables. Yes, it's true: "Set your minds on things that are above, not on things that are on earth" (Colossians 3:2 ESV). Piper says we must give up our longings for praise of, sufficiency and consolation in temporal things. I counted four different kinds of brooms in my closet - each one purchased with the idea that each one would render a better swept floor. How foolish we are when we cannot see the best and most sufficient Christmas gift ever given was to the glory of God and to the utter sufficiency and consolation of mankind - The Word made flesh ... Savior of the world. Jesus - the ... gift and the glory.