Exhortation

Christmas gifts should be an occasion for joy, but it’s not necessarily so. Gifts also produce discontent, envy, anger, resentment, and strife. You didn’t get what you wanted; someone else’s gift is bigger and better. And so on and on.

In this season of giving, we need to remember the basics of Christian giving and receiving: You have nothing that you have not received; God is the Giver of all gifts who distributes gifts as He wills; He is the one to whom we return thanks.

Remember these simply truths. Give freely, without anxiety, because every gift comes from God. Receive gratefully, without envy or anger, because every gift is from God. And use the season to give glory to the God of gifts.

We must beware of turning our anger toward God. What offends us is not God’s stinginess but his extravagant generosity. Jesus ends the parable of the laborers with a question for all of us: “Is your eye envious because I am generous?”