Christmas Day was special for us at Epiphany Ranch, and then the day after, the 26th, after a yummy brisket lunch, we headed home to celebrate Christmas with our Canadian family members who have been here celebrating our American holiday traditions.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Them being here reminds me of Canada’s statutory holiday on December 26th called Boxing Day. It is not only a day for Santas everywhere to catch their breath, but it is a day for clean-up of all those empty gift boxes from the day before.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Its British origin is traced back to 1833 when lords of manors and aristocrats distributed \u201cChristmas boxes\u201d filled with gifts, money, and leftovers from Christmas dinner to their household servants and employees. They had been required to work on December 25th and were recognized for their good service throughout the year.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Our Boxing Day, yesterday, was when we boxed up our treasures and placed them in our car for our ride home from East Texas. I would be remiss to end this blog with Boxing Day \u201ctalk\u201d, because while we\u2019ll soon be boxing away our Christmas decorations that include the manger scenes and Holy Family figurines \u2014 we will never be able to box away God\u2019s great love for us.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
For some, seeing Jesus as a baby in a manger and \u201cboxing\u201d Him away for another year is as close as they want to get to Him. Perhaps the grown-up Jesus seems too far removed from their everyday life.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
But, if we keep Jesus at arm\u2019s length, we\u2019ll never get to know and love Him for Who He truly is. If we want to move faith from our heads to our hearts, we must fall in love with the REAL \u2014 alive and well \u2014 Jesus.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
To fall in love with Jesus, it must be more than a once-a-year celebration. It must be a love affair that exists every day! That kind of love takes time and persistence, just like any good relationship. Jesus invites us to abide in His love \u2014 rest, stay, tarry \u2014 not rush past it. In John 15:9, He said, \u201cAs the Father has loved me, so have I loved you. Now remain in my love.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
There are far more reasons to love Jesus, but let’s start by making a gratitude list for our Lord:
He is God with us
He is Love
He is Truth
He is the way
He is a miracle worker
He is the light of the world
He makes all things new
He is our Healer
He knows our name
He keeps His promises
He is faithful
He is good
He is our Prince of Peace
He is our Savior and Lord
He will never forsake us<\/p>\n\n\n\n
How do we get to that kind of love and then give it back to Him? For us to experience that love, we need to really know Him. As we stand at the door of a new year, won\u2019t you join me in seeking to know and love Him more? That\u2019s my Priority #1 for the new year!<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cAnd I pray that you, being rooted and established in love, may have power, together with all the Lord\u2019s holy people, to grasp how wide and long and high and deep is the love of Christ, and to know this love that surpasses knowledge \u2014 that you may be filled to the measure of all the fullness of God\u201d. (Ephesians 3:17-19)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Christmas Day was special for us at Epiphany Ranch, and then the day after, the 26th, after a yummy brisket lunch, we headed home to celebrate Christmas with our Canadian family members who have been here celebrating our American holiday traditions. Them being here reminds me of Canada’s statutory holiday on December 26th called Boxing…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":19282,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_coblocks_attr":"","_coblocks_dimensions":"","_coblocks_responsive_height":"","_coblocks_accordion_ie_support":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[1210,26610,15947,28776,1769,251,20832,1392,25448,491,15694,455,40,749,15951,132,28777,28778,575,343,610],"class_list":["post-19281","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-blog","tag-boxing","tag-boxing-day","tag-canada-statutory-holiday","tag-christian","tag-christmas","tag-epiphany-ranch","tag-facebook","tag-fall-in-love-with-jesus","tag-god-with-us","tag-gratitude-list","tag-holy-family","tag-inspiration","tag-jesus","tag-john-159","tag-love","tag-manger-scenes","tag-reasons-to-love-jesus","tag-relationship","tag-the-way","tag-truth"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mypeacezone.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19281","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mypeacezone.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mypeacezone.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mypeacezone.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mypeacezone.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=19281"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/mypeacezone.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19281\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":19283,"href":"https:\/\/mypeacezone.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19281\/revisions\/19283"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mypeacezone.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/19282"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mypeacezone.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=19281"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mypeacezone.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=19281"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mypeacezone.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=19281"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}